The Journal of applied psychology
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Incivility between customers and employees is common in many service organizations. These encounters can have negative outcomes for employees, customers, and the organization. To date, researchers have tended to study incivility as an aggregated and accumulated phenomenon (entity perspective). ⋯ Using a mixed-method multilevel field study of customer service interactions, we show that individual customer incivility encounters (i.e., events) trigger employee incivility as a function of the employee's overall accumulated impression of the (in)civility in his or her customer interactions, such that the effects are more pronounced among employees who generally perceive their customer interactions to be more versus less civil. We also find that these interactive effects occur only among employees who are lower (vs. higher) in negative affectivity. Our results show that, in order to expand the understanding of customer incivility, it is important to study the incivility encounter, the social context in which negative customer interactions occur, and individual differences.
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Drawing on cognitive rumination theories and conceptualizing customer service interaction as a goal attainment situation for service employees, the current study examined employee rumination about negative service encounters as an intermediate cognitive process that explains the within-person fluctuations in negative emotional reactions resulting from customer mistreatment. Multilevel analyses of 149 call-center employees' 1,189 daily surveys revealed that on days that a service employee received more (vs. less) customer mistreatment, he or she ruminated more (vs. less) at night about negative encounters with customers, which in turn led to higher (vs. lower) levels of negative mood experienced in the next morning. In addition, service rule commitment and perceived organizational support moderated the within-person effect of customer mistreatment on rumination, such that this effect was stronger among those who had higher (vs. lower) levels of service rule commitment but weaker among those who had higher (vs. lower) levels of perceived organizational support. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
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Integrating theories of proactive motivation, team innovation climate, and motivation in teams, we developed and tested a multilevel model of motivators of innovative performance in teams. Analyses of multisource data from 428 members of 95 research and development (R&D) teams across 33 Chinese firms indicated that team-level support for innovation climate captured motivational mechanisms that mediated between transformational leadership and team innovative performance, whereas members' motivational states (role-breadth self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation) mediated between proactive personality and individual innovative performance. Furthermore, individual motivational states and team support for innovation climate uniquely promoted individual innovative performance, and, in turn, individual innovative performance linked team support for innovation climate to team innovative performance.
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The purpose of this study was to use the categorization-elaboration model (CEM) to examine the asymmetrical effects of goal faultlines in groups, which are present when hypothetical dividing lines are created on the basis of different performance goals, splitting the group into subgroups. On the basis of the CEM, we expected groups with goal faultlines to exhibit higher levels of creative task performance than (a) groups with specific, difficult goals and (b) groups with do-your-best goals. ⋯ Results from 87 groups generally supported our hypothesized model. Implications are discussed as well as possible limitations and directions for future research.
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We examine the effect of (in)congruence between leaders' and teams' power distance values on team effectiveness. We hypothesize that the (in)congruence between these values would differentially predict team effectiveness, with procedural justice climate serving as a mediator. Using multisource data and polynomial regression, we found that similarities (and differences) between leaders' and their teams' power distance values can have consequential effects on teams' justice climate and, ultimately, their effectiveness (viz., team performance and team organizational citizenship behavior). We conclude that to fully understand the implications of power distance, one should consider the multiple perspectives of both leaders and team members.