Antecedents and outcomes of customer incivility a study of frontline employees in vietnam’s retail industry

The study examined five constructs including: experienced supervisor incivility, experienced co-worker incivility, customer incivility, emotional labor and quality of work life; which ar

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Bùi Xuân Quỳnh

ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES OF

CUSTOMER INCIVILITY:

A STUDY OF FRONTLINE EMPLOYEES IN VIETNAM’S RETAIL

INDUSTRY

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Bùi Xuân Quỳnh

ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES OF

CUSTOMER INCIVILITY:

A STUDY OF FRONTLINE EMPLOYEES IN VIETNAM’S RETAIL

Acknowledgement

Apart from the efforts of me, the on time completion of the thesis largely on the

encouragement and guidelines of many others I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the people who have been instrumental in the successful completion of this thesis

I would like to express my appreciation to Dr Nguyễn Thị Mai Trang – my instructor She provided me with tremendous support, help and motivations Without her instructions and guidance, I would not materialized this thesis

The guidance and supports received from ISB, classmates, friends and family are also very important to me I am grateful for their constant support and help

Antecedents and outcomes of customer incivility:

A study of frontline employees in Vietnam retail industry

Abstract

One of the big challenges of retail industry is improve the service quality to catch up with the growth of economics In order to improve the service quality, mandatory corporate emotional expression rules commonly employed; which is in turn, affect the frontline employee emotional well-being and increase turn-over intention – another big challenge

of retail industry Workplace incivility and emotional labor somehow exist in the middle

of this conflict; where they have been attended by researchers, and receiving more

attention as its practical potential and importance The study examined five constructs including: experienced supervisor incivility, experienced co-worker incivility, customer incivility, emotional labor and quality of work life; which are possible antecedents,

mediators and outcome of customer incivility A face-to-face survey with the target of

300 valid samples conducted with frontline employees in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam The results support all hypotheses; whereas experienced supervisor incivility and

experienced co-worker incivility are antecedents of customer incivility; customer

incivility is found related to quality of work life – a non-negative outcome Surface acting and deep acting, the two dimensions of emotional labor are found as mediators in the relation between customer incivility and quality of work life with inconsistent effects addressing the importance of workplace incivility and positive roles of emotional labor which further study should attend

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 7

2 Theoretical background and hypotheses 13

2.1 Customer incivility and its antecedents 13

2.2 Emotional labor 21

2.2 Quality of work life 24

3 Research method 25

3.1 Procedure and sample 25

3.2 Measurements 26

3.3 Data collection 27

3.4 Measurement refinement 28

4 Data analyses results 30

4.1 Confirmatory Factor Analysis 30

4.2 Hypotheses testing – Structural Equation Model (SEM) 31

5 Discussion 33

5.1 Implications for theory and research 35

5.2 Implications for managers 37

5.3 Conclusions 38

5.4 Limitations and implications for future research 38

6 Support information 40

6.1 Qualitative data collection procedures, guidelines and transcripts 40

6.2 English questionnaire 63

6.3 Vietnamese questionnaire 67

6.4 Analyses results 71

References 73

List of figures and tables

Table 1: Recent studies of workplace incivility antecedents 18

Figure 1: Research model 24

Table 2: Sample characteristics 27

Table 3: Data collection 28

Table 4: EFA results 29

Table 5: CFA Model fit 31

Table 6: Validity 31

Table 7: SEM Model fit 32

Table 8: Structural paths – SEM 32

Table 9: Mediation tests 33

1 Introduction

Retail industry holds a very important part in the economic; in 2016, total retail sales worldwide estimated to reach 22.049 trillion US$ and forecasted to continue to grow (“Total retail sales worldwide, 2015-2020 (trillions and % change)”, 2017) As other industries, retail industry facing multiple challenges; which two noticeable challenges are the necessity to improve the retail service quality when the growth of economics pushing the growth of retail industry (Vargo, Maglio, & Akaka, 2008), and retaining salespeople

or service employees, who interact face-to-face with customers and often referred to as frontline employees, as high turnover is recognized as critical problem to the industry (Freemen, 2017; Kern & Grandey, 2009; Han, Bonn, & Cho, 2016) In order to improve the retail service quality, retailers often apply strict and strong mandatory emotion

expression rules to their frontline employees; however, mandatory emotion expression rules often associate with faking emotions which may negatively affect the frontline employees and reduce the job outcomes of frontline employees, increase turnover

intention (Grandey, 2003; Kim, Jung-Eun Yoo, Lee, & Kim, 2012)

The retail industry of Vietnam shows quite similarities; where the economy is forecasted to continue to grow (Thanh Thom, 2017), and considered as a transition

market which in the world’s top 30 countries with most attractive retail market Vietnam industry revenue of 2017 is estimated to reach almost 130 billion US$ (Hùng Lê, 2018); and holds at least 50% of total businesses registered and employs almost three million labors (Nguyên Vũ, 2016), in which a large portion of these employees are working at the frontline and providing services to customer directly with face-to-face contact High

turnover is addressed as a critical challenge to Vietnam retailers, results of a recent

survey show that 28% of employers in retail industry find frontline employees not have long-term commitment and 49% address that frontline employees are not persistent when approached by another retail employer (Nam Dương, 2017) Vietnam retailers also

employ mandatory emotion expression rules for their frontline employees to improve retail service quality; and not an exception, Vietnam retailers still not yet paid sufficient attention to the affects maybe produced and harm their business as well as the well-being

of their frontline employees

Concern the negative effects on the well-being of frontline employees; in 2016, there are many cases of customer aggressions made the news in Vietnam (Quốc Huy, 2016; Hoàng Đan, 2016; Tuấn Phùng, 2016); these are highlighted physical aggressive actions where the customers punched and slabbed the frontline employees which involve single or few individuals where the victims (frontline employees) were traumatized and/or hospitalized; the lower intensity cases which involve large crowd of Vietnamese were gone unreported However, when using keywords “Supermarket culture of

Vietnamese” searching on the internet, the results will show multiple news articles on the

“bad habits” or “bad behavior” of Vietnamese in supermarket or public places (Bảo Phương, 2016; Thu Hà, 2016; T.Anh, 2012), which mostly concern the “uncivilized” behavior of Vietnamese in supermarket and public places through the viewpoint of other customers upon the occurrence of their discomforting emotions in such circumstances Though, they are customers, they only experience these behaviors occasionally;

meanwhile, supermarket employees or more broadly – frontline employees are possibly

have to experience these behaviors with a much higher frequency These behaviors are considered as “interpersonal mistreatment” and “sub-form of counterproductive”

(Vagharseyyedin, 2015, p 116); which often addressed as workplace incivility and

recognized as counterproductive work behavior which reduce the productivity of the organization and employee (Fox, Spector, & Miles, 2001; Anderson & Pearson, 1999) Evidences of the negative relationship between workplace incivility and employee’s well-being have been found in multiple industries and contexts (Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001; Han, Bonn, & Cho, 2015), and “comparable with low intensity stress” which can have emotionally and physically negative effect (Han et al., 2016) Customer incivility is identified as one of the negative factors which relates to the use of emotion of frontline employees and increase turnover intention; which has been gathered substantial attention of researchers (Grandey, 2003; Han et al., 2016)

The incivility behavior occurred in workplace has not been well attended, and Vietnam is not an exception; because the corporate as well as the employee are not fully aware of its harmful potential to the whole organization (Torkelson, Holm, Backstrom, & Schad, 2016) Furthermore, the incivility behavior could be produced due to the lack of norms of civility and uncivility (Walsh, Magley, Reeves, Davies-Schrils, Marmet, & Gallus, 2012); especially in a growing market like Vietnam where the retail service

quality standard is continuously increased Workplace incivility is studied by researchers under three dimensions: supervisor incivility, co-worker incivility and customer

incivility; recently, the suggestion of “family incivility” and “employee incivility” by Hur, Moon, and Han (2015, p 407); and Walker, Jaarsveld, and Skarlicki (2014)

Previous studies found noticeable effects of customer incivility on frontline service employees (Cho, Bonn, Han, & Lee, 2016; Han et al., 2016; Laschinger, Leiter, Day, & Gilin, 2009; Hur et al., 2015); the related factors studied as increase turnover intention (Han et al., 2016), decrease service performance (Cho et al., 2016), recruitment and retention (Laschinger et al., 2009)

The studies of customer incivility have been conducted in Asia countries such as Korea (Cho et al., 2016), China (Chen, Ferris, Kwan, Yan, Zhou, & Hong, 2013),

Malaysia (Santos, Mustafa, & Gwi, 2014), and Thailand (Akkawanitcha, Patterson, Buranapin, & Kantabutra, 2014) where negative effects are found However, only little studies attempted to find the antecedents of workplace incivility and especially customer incivility (Hershcovis & Barling, 2010; Bartlett, Bartlett, & Reio, 2008; Lanzo, Aziz, & Wuensch, 2015; Hur, Moon, & Jun, 2016) Lanzo et al (2015, p 175) note “An

examination of the antecedents of workplace incivility is a novel area of study”, “did not address the question who likely to be uncivil as a result of stress” and future research should examine the instigator of the workplace incivility

Workplace incivility is proved to have strong relation with emotional exhaustion and mediated by surface acting and deep acting which are the two dimensions of

emotional labor (Hur et al., 2015) Decreasing in service performance, increase turnover intention, and reducing organization commitment are studied outcomes of customer incivility (Cho et al., 2016) Emotional labor concept was initiated by Hochschild (1983), which is a form of emotional regulation but different to emotional intelligent; and

previously proved to have negative effects on individual (employee) as well as

organization (Hwa, 2012) Previous study conceptualizes surface acting and deep acting are two dimensions of emotional labor; and findings support the stronger negative effect

of surface acting on emotional exhaustion than deep acting (Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Grandey, 2000; Hwa, 2012; Hur et al., 2014) Grandey (2000, p 97) posits

emotional labor as the process where employee managing their “feelings and

expressions” toward the goal set by the organization

Emotional labor and emotional exhaustion proved by prior studies to have strong relation (Grandey, 2003; Grandey & Frone, 2007); and both emotional labor and

emotional exhaustion found related to employee outcomes and employee well-being; which in turn are work attitudes, job performance, organization citizenship, affective commitment, job satisfaction, customer service performance, organization commitment, and turnover intention (Cho et al., 2016; Sliter, Jex, Wolford, & McInnerney, 2010; Hur

et al., 2014; Walsh et al., 2015; Cropanzano, Rupp, & Byrne, 2003) On the other hand; Sirgy et al (2001, p 242) define quality of work life as “employee satisfaction with a variety of needs through resources, activities and outcomes stemming from participation

in the workplace”; and suggest that quality of work life “may have a significant impact

on employee behavioral responses, such as organizational identification, job

performance, intention to quit, organization turnover, personal alienation” (Sirgy et al.,

2001, p 242) Quality of work life was first introduced by Hackman & Oldham (1976) and received large amount of attention where the authors referred as “quality of working life”

Contradiction in the viewpoints of employers and employees in retail industry revealed in a recent survey in Vietnam, employees have concern on organization culture (99%) through working environment, human factors, and organization vision; meanwhile 51% of the interviewed employers see the compliance with the organization culture is mandatory and 40% are not (Nam Dương, 2017) Mandatory compliance with

organization culture often associate with strong mandatory emotional expression rules Factors related to quality of work life also found as reasons to turnover; recent reports show 22% of the correspondents turned over due to low wages and promotion problems (Nam Dương, 2017; Ngân Anh, 2017)

Other prior studies found support for the relationship between job performance and quality of work life (Nguyễn & Nguyễn, 2012; Koonmee & Virakul, 2012; Sirgy, Efraty, Stegel, & Lee, 2001); and a prior study successfully examined quality of work life

as a mediator between emotional labor and work family interference (Cheung & Tang, 2009); this would be a further evidence for the direct relationship between emotional labor and quality of work life Based on the similarities in the founded relations of

workplace incivility, customer incivility, emotional labor, emotional exhaustion, and quality of work life; the study would argue that this would be a sufficient basis to test the direct relationship from customer incivility to emotional labor and emotional labor to quality of work life, and the possible mediating effect of emotional labor between

customer incivility and quality of work life in the context of frontline employee in Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam

The next part provides theoretical background and development of hypotheses

2 Theoretical background and hypotheses

2.1 Customer incivility and its antecedents

The term “civility” was posited as standards of behavior and speech to maintain the being of individual during his or her interactions with another individual; therefore, in order to benefits from the interactions, this individual shall have the obligations to be

well-“civilized” for the well-being of the other individual at the same time (Vagharseyyedin, 2015) Inappropriate actions and behavior of an individual or customer may lead to the interpretation of “insulting and degrading verbal and nonverbal conduct”

(Vagharseyyedin, 2015, p 116)

Incivility in workplace has raised the concern of scholars from around the world within the last two decades (Schilpzand, Pater, & Erez, 2014; Cho et al., 2016; Han et al., 2016; Laschinger et al., 2009; Anderson & Pearson, 1999; Cortina et al., 2001; Walsh, Magley, Reeves, Davies-Schrils, Marmet, & Gallus, 2012) Incivility definition posited

by Anderson & Pearson (1999) is considered as the foundation for the study of workplace incivility (Cho et al., 2016; Han et al., 2016; Laschinger et al., 2009; Cortina et al., 2001; Walsh et al., 2012); which is “like aggression, but one that is less intense and ambiguous

as intent to harm” (p 457) Workplace incivility therefore consists of two characteristics, first is the “low intensity of the behavior” and the second is the “ambiguous intent”; therefore, when the intent to harm the other becomes clear with high intensity, it would

be considered as act of aggression not incivility (Vagharseyyedin, 2015, p 118) Previous studies notice incivility as antisocial behaviors and overlap with aggression and bullying;

“there is certain degree of overlap between workplace incivility and workplace bullying” (Torkelson et al., 2016, p 118)

Schilpzand et al (2016) summarize that the study of incivility have been

conducted around the globe as it is recognized as a global phenomenon not just one or two specific cultures or countries; and the incivility in workplace has been studied and tested “from a wide variety of jobs and professions” (Schilpzand et al., 2016, p 61) Early study of workplace incivility mostly concern the internal interactions of the

workplace, which includes supervisor incivility and co-worker incivility; customer

incivility only started to be examined recently, and significant impacts on frontline

employee were found (Han et al., 2016; Cho et al., 2016) The negative outcomes of incivility in workplace have been found in previous studies as turnover intention,

decrease job performance, decrease service performance, recruitment and retention The antecedents of workplace incivility not yet received sufficient attention, even though the understanding of antecedents would help managers preventing the workplace incivility to reduce its harmful effects on employee as well as the whole organization (Hur et al., 2016) Because of the “ambiguous” and “less intense” of the incivility and the overlap between incivility and bullying, aggression; researchers attempted to study its

antecedents through examining the antecedents of bullying; (Torkelson et al., 2016, p 118) note “research on bullying is relevant when considering antecedents of workplace incivility” and “bullying cause mental distress and that mental distress led to bullying”

Researchers often address the parties involved in a workplace incivility incident as perpetrator, target, instigator and victim; workplace incivility includes supervisor

incivility, co-worker incivility, customer incivility, family incivility and employee

incivility (Schilpzand et al., 2016; Cho et al., 2016; Han et al., 2016; Laschinger et al., 2009; Anderson & Pearson, 1999; Cortina et al., 2001; Walsh et al., 2012; Bartlett et al., 2008; Torkelson et al., 2016; Hur et al., 2016; Hur et al 2015; Walker et al., 2014) Schilpzand et al (2016) summarizes incivility by the initiating party as supervisor, co-worker, customer, family member, and employee; and by the types which includes

experienced, witnessed and instigated incivility

Previous studies address the uncivil spiral, which mean the escalation of incivility from the moment it is instigated and possibly led to aggression or even violence; where both parties are negatively affected (Anderson & Pearson, 1999; Holm, Torkelson, & Backstrom, 2015; Lim et al., 2008; Hershcovis & Barling, 2010) However, there are possibilities that the perpetrator or instigator become the target or victim of his/her own initiated incivility behavior The chance to become victim of incivility behavior would be depended on the power position of the involved parties and who is holding the lower position Therefore, employee would be the victim of their own incivility behavior when evoking “power imbalance between customers and service employees” and “customers often take advantages of their position and increasingly abuse their power” (Hur et al.,

2014, p 395) ignoring the fact that the incivility instigated by employee or customer

The examining of antecedents of workplace incivility attempted concern the incident occurred inside an organization between supervisor-subordinate/employee (supervisor incivility) and employee-employee (co-worker incivility), little attention to examine the antecedents of workplace incivility between employee-outsider

(employee/customer incivility) (Hur et al., 2016) The main different between

employee/customer incivility and supervisor incivility, co-worker incivility that the

perpetrator or instigator does not acquainted with the target or victim, which mean the employee encounters incivility with “a total stranger” On the other hand, the impact or perception of incivility with supervisor or co-worker would be mediated or moderated by the knowledge of the perpetrator or instigator about the target or victim and vice versa, or common understanding of the workplace environment

For more than a decade, researchers have been examined antecedents of workplace incivility from multiple perspectives: distributive injustice, job dissatisfaction, and work exhaustion (Blau & Anderson, 2005); beliefs and personality of workers, organization downsizing, structure and environment (Bartlett et al., 2008); workaholism (Lanzo et al., 2015) In Abid, Khan, Rafiq and Amed (2015) study, twenty one antecedents of

workplace incivility were summarized and examined; in which customer incivility was examined as antecedent of workplace incivility However, there is still little literature on antecedents of customer incivility (Hur et al., 2015; Lanzo et al., 2015); Hur et al (2014,

p 407) notice “limitation of this study is that supervisor or coworker incivility should also be explicitly examined as other sources of incivility that might have an even greater effect on employees’ psychological well-being and customer-related outcomes”

A conceptual study by Bartlett et al (2008, p.3, 4) divide antecedents of

workplace incivility into two groups; first is the “antecedents for workers” which

“include beliefs and personality”:

Beliefs include expected benefits, perceived job insecurity, dissatisfaction,

attitudes about aggression, and low perceived cost for inappropriate behaviors (Salin, 2003) Personality is also a motivator for incivility Type A personality, trait aggression, hostility, power, ego, and internal competition are all personality traits that can motivate uncivil behavior (Cortina et al., 2001; Glendinning, 2001; Hornstein, 2003; Salin, 2003) (p.3)

Second is “antecedents for organization” which include “downsizing”, “structural antecedents” and “environmental antecedents”:

Other structural antecedents for organizations found in the literature were

reengineering (Anderson & Pearson, 1999), hierarchical structuring (Muir, 2000), use of part time employment (Anderson & Person, 1999; Vickers, 2006), organizational change (Salin, 2003; Vickers, 2006), and globalization (Gardner & Johnson, 2001; Muir, 2000) Environmental antecedents for organizations included autocratic work environments, difficult working conditions, and an anxiety ridden workplace (work atmosphere)

(Anderson & Pearson, 1999; Gardner & Johnson, 2001; Indvik, 2001; Muir, 2000; Foster, 2004) (p 4, 5)

Rau-In line with Bartlett et al (2008) study, an empirical study by Torkelson et al (2016, p 119) examined and found support for the relationship between organizational variables and incivility This study also examined found the support for the “possible antecedent to perpetrating incivility” as being victimized, whereas the correspondents see themselves as perpetrator and victim at the same time which “triggered a sense of

retaliation” and may create a “spiral”

Table 1: Recent studies of workplace incivility antecedents

Study Antecedents Outcomes (Location) Method Findings

Abid et al

(2015)

Job stress Asserting power on other colleague Perception of distributive, procedural and interactional justice Job dissatisfaction Lack of professional, disrespectful environment Power and social status Job exhaustion High stress environment Job security Interest conflict and status-based social enclosure Gender harassment Emotional exhaustion Gender diversity (misunderstanding) Job demands Sexualized harassment Organizational chaos (enhance through downsizing,

Workplace Incivility

Employees from various sectors in Lahore region

“Almost every individual at workplace is a Victim

of workplace incivility” (p 6310)

outsourcing and most centrally Customer Incivility Workload Workplace adaptation Hostile workplace Affective experience

Walker et

al (2014) Individual Customer Incivility Employee Incivility

Customer service employees

in Central Canada

“Employees react to uncivil event by engaging in incivility”;

“employees respond

to event customer incivility as a function

of their accumulated, entity perceptions of incivility in customer interactions” (p 158)

Vagarseyyedi

n (2015)

Individual factors Organizational factors

Workplace incivility target related outcomes Workplace incivility witness-related outcomes Workplace incivility organizational and community related outcomes

Concept analysis Clinical environme

nt

“Workplace incivility

is a phenomenon in which specific personal and organizational factors are involved and can have negative outcomes for the victims, witnesses, organizations, and probably the perpetrators themselves” (p 123)

Schilpzand

et al

(2016)

Dispositional antecedents of experienced incivility

Affective outcomes of experienced incivility

Literature review

“Most research on incivility focuses on experienced incivility (45 out of 55 papers) and, more

Behavioral antecedents of experienced incivility Situational antecedents of experienced incivility Witnessed incivility Instigated incivility

Attitudinal outcomes of experienced incivility Cognitive outcomes of experienced incivility Behavioral outcomes of experienced incivility

specifically, on the various outcomes for targets of uncivil conduct” (p S67)

Bartlett et

al (2008)

Antecedents for workers: variables that facilitating incivility; enablers, motivators, and triggers Antecedent for organizations:

structural environmental, and outlying

Outcomes for Workers:

individual, interpersonal relationships, and productivity Outcomes for organizations:

financial impact, administrative, and environmental

Integrative review

“Workplace incivility has definite impacts

on workers in terms

of productivity, health, attitudes, and relationships Finance, environment, structure, and administration are categories of variables at the organizational level that are affected by acts of workplace incivility” (p 6; 9-3)

Lanzo et

al (2015) Workaholism Incivility

Employees from various organizatio

ns and industries

in Eastern USA

“Participants who reported higher levels

of stress and lower levels of PsyCap were more likely to engage

in uncivil behaviors, regardless of their workaholism score Furthermore, workaholics reported higher levels of stress, lower levels of PsyCap, and engaging

in workplace incivility Overall, workaholism and stress increased incivility, while PsyCap decreased it”

(p 176)

The study bases on reviewed literature of workplace incivility and customer

incivility would argue that the incivility incident between employee and customer would have negative effects on both parties and employee will likely to become victim (who receive higher level of negative effect) of the incivility instigated by themselves due to the employee-customer power imbalance; and refers the incident as “customer incivility”

In line with previous studies and the suggestion by Hur et al (2015); the study examines the possibilities of which the incivility from persons working together in an organization may trigger the incivility between the person working in that organization and an

effect (Han et al., 2016; Cho et al., 2016; Hur, Han, Yoo, & Moon, 2014; Santos, et al., 2014; Walsh, Dahling, Schaarschmidt, & Brach, 2016; Cho et al., 2017; Hwa, 2012) On the other hand; Lewig and Dollard (2003, p 368) sees emotional labor as a tool with both negative and positive effect, as “emotional labor can serve to facilitate task effectiveness” and “emotional labor can become dysfunctional for the worker when dissonance between felt emotions and displayed emotions is experienced” In other words, when frontline service employee fake his or her emotion in order to cope with the circumstances set-out

by the incivility of customer, it will damage the emotions of the employee The emotional labor strategy employed by the employee will affect his or her own well-being (Cho et al., 2017) One of the most studied negative outcomes of workplace incivility is

emotional exhaustion (Han et al., 2016; Cho et al., 2016; Laschinger et al., 2009) In Han

et al (2015), Cho et al (2016), and Chen et al (2013) significant effect of incivility on burnout and emotional exhaustion found In line with these studies, a study from

Thailand by Akkawanitcha et al (2014, p 275) concludes that “frontline employees experience negative psychological well-being including negative effect, anxiety,

depression and stress” when facing “customer aggression” repeatedly, where the authors define “customer aggression” as:

Such customer behaviors might include verbal abuse, such as raised voices,

sarcasm, screaming, intimidation, yelling and swearing; physical threats, such as

slamming down fists, shoving or slamming down a phone; and non-verbal signals,

including angry facial expressions, staring and other body language (p 269)

A recent study from Malaysia examined surface acting and deep acting as

mediators between emotional intelligence personal traits and burnout, the results are in line with previous studies and confirm that surface acting does have mediating effect between emotional intelligence personal traits and burnout meanwhile deep acting does not (Santos et al., 2014) Another recent study from the US examined moderating effects

of surface acting of secondary job on the surface acting of primary job; results confirm the moderating effect and direct positive effect of surface acting on emotional exhaustion and indirect negative effect on affective commitment while emotional exhaustion acts as mediator (Walsh et al., 2016)

However, workplace incivility not only associate with emotional exhaustion where the mediating effect of emotional labor tested, workplace incivility also associate with other negative outcomes such as: turnover intention, decrease job performance, decrease service performance, recruitment and retention, reduce employee creativity, and negative effects on mental health (Han et al., 2016; Cho et al., 2016; Cho et al., 2016; Laschinger

et al., 2009; Hur et al., 2015; Lim, Cortina, & Magley, 2008); which those are in turn, associate with quality of work life (Sirgy et al., 2001) As a summary from previous studies, workplace incivility related to emotional labor, emotional labor related to

emotional exhaustion, and emotional exhaustion related to quality of work life, the study proposes the research model (Figure 1) In which, experienced supervisor incivility and experienced co-worker incivility are antecedents of customer incivility, customer

incivility is directly related to quality of work life and mediated by surface acting and deep acting as the two dimensions of emotional labor

Figure 1: Research Model

H3a: Customer incivility is positively related to Surface Acting

H3b: Customer incivility is positively related to Deep Acting

H4a: Surface Acting is positively related to Quality of Work Life

H4b: Deep Acting is positively related to Quality of Work Life

H5a: The relation between Customer Incivility and Quality of Work Life is

mediated by Surface Acting

H5b: The relation between Customer Incivility and Quality of Work Life is

mediated by Deep Acting

2.3 Quality of work life

Quality of work life refers to the feeling of being fulfilled of the employee mentally, physically, and materially in his or her workplace (Sirgy et al., 2001; Martel & Dupuis,

2006; Nguyễn & Nguyễn, 2012; Koomee & Virkul, 2012; Manhas, 2013; Lee, Back, & Chan, 2014) Quality of work life is a multidimensional concept, its measurements has been developed by scholars (Sirgy et al., 2001; Martel & Dupuis, 2006; Louis, 1989; Hwang, Lawler, & Lei, 200&); among the measurements developed, the measurements developed by Sirgy et al (2001), and Martel and Dupuis (2006) are widely recognized by researchers Quality of work life is posited as a “crucial construct for organization to attract and retain employee” (Lee et al., 2014, p 769), and “a happy employee is a

productive employee and a happy employee is a dedicated and loyal employee” (Sirgy et al., 2001, p 242) That is, quality of work life is strongly associate with attracting,

retaining employee, organization identification, job performance, commitment, and loyalty; whereas, high turnover is identified as a critical problem of retail industry For many organizations, frontline employee not only the front but also plays important role in creating values for the organization, it is important to maintain their level of productivity, commitment and loyalty

3 Research method

3.1 Procedure and sample

The data collection was implemented in two phases: qualitative and quantitative surveys; qualitative survey was conducted to confirm the dimensions, items; the interpretation of the dimensions, items (from English to Vietnamese and translate back to English); and how frontline employees (sales staff, store service personnel) comprehend these

dimensions The definitions at first explained and discussed among a group interview with 3 interviewees for revising the preliminary semi-structured questionnaire for in

depth interview, the participants of this mini-focus group are experienced trainer, sales and sales team manager After all definitions were comprehended and simplified, a semi-structured questionnaire was produced and interviewed with an experienced sales staff and experienced sales trainers for confirming the research problems

Quantitative data collection with expectation of minimum 300 valid

questionnaires; the 5-point Likert questionnaires were printout, distributed and collected then checked for validity until reached 300 The frontline employees interviewed are working at shops, shopping centers, salespersons, bank counter-employees (including coffee shops, restaurants, stand-alone shops, wet-market shops, convenient stores, Big C supermarket, Lotte Mart, Aeon Mall, Diamond plaza, electronic distribution centers) within Ho Chi Minh City territory (including district 1, 5, 6, 10, 11, 9, 2, Thu Duc, Binh Tan and Tan Phu) Researcher hired a group of seven students residing in Hồ Chí Minh City for the questionnaire distribution, interviewing and collecting; each acceptable questionnaire was paid by a small fee of 10,000 VND Quantitative data collection was conducted from 1st August 2017 to 31st August 2017

3.2 Measurements

The research model includes 5 constructs which experienced supervisor incivility and experienced co-worker incivility are two constructs; the measurements are adopted from the scale developed by Cortina et al (2001) with 7 items The measurements of customer incivility are adopted from the scale tested by Hur et al (2015) with 8 items Emotional labor with 6 items scale developed and tested by Brotheridge and Lee (2003) with two dimensions are surface acting and deep acting The measurements of quality of work life

are adopted the scale with 3 components (survival needs, belonging needs, and

knowledge needs) and 9 items which are successful tested in Vietnam (Nguyễn &

Nguyễn, 2012) based on the scale proposed by Sirgy et al (2001)

3.3 Data collection

Table 2: Sample characteristics

Category Frequency Percentage (%)

Experience

More than 2 to less than 5 years 58 19.33

Married without children 41 13.67

Demographic statistic reflects the nature of frontline employees (service

employees and sales staff) as: young, age below 30 (90.00%) in which under 23 years-old hold 36.67%; low commitment, frontline employee works for less than 2 years hold

76.67%; single (73.66%); female dominant (68%); low income (below 5 million VND per month – 47.00%) The low commitment of the samples of the study is in line with the recent report in Vietnam, which the report found 60% of the frontline employees are working averagely 2 to 3 years for a same job (Ngân Anh, 2017) Together with low commitment, other characteristics of the samples as: young, female dominant, single, and low income would implicate the rationales behind the low job expectancy of frontline employees; for an instance, a male frontline employee with higher expectation for income would quit and find another job with higher income (Ngân Anh, 2017)

Table 3: Data collection

Source Distribute d Collected Response rate Eliminate d Valid Valid rate

3.4 Measurement refinement

All items were tested for their reliability, all Cronbach’s alphas are within acceptable range; the smallest is 0.847 and the highest is 0.857 With all reliability of measurement items confirmed, exploratory factor analysis was conducted for two times, with Principal Component Analysis and Varimax Rotation method selected Two items were removed (CI6, CI8) All remaining items re-tested for their reliability, all Cronbach’s alphas are

within acceptable range; the smallest is 0.832 and the highest is 0.842; KMO=.809;

significant p<0.001, items of variables have sufficient relations for a meaningful CFA

The average variance extracted values (AVE) are considerably low; however,

according to Fornell and Larcker (1981), AVE should be larger than 0.5; in cases which

AVE is smaller than 0.5 but larger than 0.4 would be acceptable if the composite

reliability (CR) is higher than 0.6 The study accepts the EFA results and proceed with

caution

Table 4: EFA results

Made demeaning or derogatory remarks about you 808 Addressed you in unprofessional terms, either publicly or

.529

Internal or external customers make unreasonable demands 531 Emotional

Labor Resist expressing my true feelings Pretend to have emotions that I don’t really have .549 773 825 445 .538

Hide my true feelings about a situation 696

Make an effort to actually feel the emotions that I need to

Really try to feel the emotions I have to show as part of my job

.684

Quality of

Work Life

My job provide good health benefits 593 844 827 358

I am satisfied with what I’m paid for my work 653

I enough time away from work to enjoy other things in life 616

I feel my job allows me to realize my full potential 789

My job allows me to sharpen my professional skills 731

Notes: CR, composite reliability; AVE, average variance extracted All factor loadings

are significant (p<0.01); All items measured on a scale ranging from 1 “strongly

disagree” to 5 “strongly agree”

4 Data analyses results

4.1 Confirmatory Factor Analysis

All remaining items were run with Pattern Matrix Model Builder in Amos 22 then

checked for model fit and validity Six more items were removed for the model to

achieve acceptable fitness and validity; which are: ECI1, ECI2, ESI3, ESI7, CI5, and

Root Means Square Error Approximation (RMSEA)

p of Close

Fit (PCLOSE)

Notes: CR, composite reliability; AVE, average variance extracted; MSV, maximum

shared variance EL, emotional labor; ECI, experienced co-worker incivility; QoWL, quality of work life; ESI, experienced supervisor incivility; CI, customer incivility

The validity results show AVE values of emotional labor, experienced supervisor incivility, customer incivility are smaller than 0.5, but larger than 0.4 (acceptable with

CR values larger than 0.6)

4.2 Hypotheses testing – Structural Equation Model (SEM)

With the model fit and validity accepted, hypothesized relations of the study were tested using structural equation model (SEM)

Table 7: SEM Model fit

Chi-square/df

(Cmin/df)

Comparative fit index (CFI)

Root Means Square Error Approximation (RMSEA)

p of Close

Fit (PCLOSE) p value

Notes: SA, surface acting; DA, deep acting are second other constructs, dimensions of

emotional labor SV, survival needs; BL, belonging needs; and KN, knowledge needs are three components of quality of work life

Table 8: Structural paths – SEM

Relationship regression weights Unstandardized

Standardized regression

Notes: SA, surface acting; DA, deep acting are second other constructs, dimensions of

emotional labor EL, emotional labor; ECI, experienced co-worker incivility; QoWL, quality of work life; ESI, experienced supervisor incivility; CI, customer incivility S.E, standard error of regression weight; C.R, critical ratio to of regression weight

The structural paths show support for hypotheses H1, H2, h3a, H3b, H4a, and H4b; all relations are positive with acceptable p-value (.05<)

Hypotheses H5a and H5b, which are the mediation effects of surface acting and deep acting between the relationship of customer incivility and quality of work life, were tested using Bootstrapping method with 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals based

on the guidelines proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986), Preacher and Hayes (2004), and

MacKinnon, Fairchild, and Fritz (2007) The results support the mediation relation of both surface acting and deep acting in the relation between customer incivility and quality of work life

Table 9: Mediation test

Mediation

Effect (a*b) Estimate (two-tailed) p Confidence Intervals 95% Bias-corrected Mediation Percent

Lower Limit Upper Limit (%)

of emotional labor between customer incivility and quality of work life

These results support hypotheses H1 and H2; which are experienced supervisor incivility and experienced co-worker incivility are positively related to customer

incivility and are antecedents of customer incivility, standardized regression weights show a slightly different between the effect of experienced supervisor incivility on

customer incivility in comparison with experienced co-worker incivility on customer incivility (0.250, p=0.012; 0.216, p=0.015) However, experienced supervisor incivility have higher amount of effect than experienced co-worker incivility; and there are

possible other antecedents than experienced supervisor incivility and experienced worker incivility, which is suggested by previous studies (Abid et al., 2015; Torkelson et al., 2016; Bartlett et al., 2008) Prior studies found negative outcomes of customer

co-incivility on frontline employee such as turnover intention, decrease job performance, decrease service performance of frontline employee (Han et al., 2016; Cho et al., 2016) The finding that experiencing of incivility at workplace as supervisor incivility and co-worker incivility positively related to customer incivility support the posit of incivility

“spiral” of previous studies (Anderson & Pearson, 1999; Holm, Torkelson, & Backstrom, 2015; Lim et al., 2008; Hershcovis & Barling, 2010) and frontline employee would labelled themselves as both victim and perpetrator

Positive relation of customer incivility on surface acting and deep acting (0.272, p=0.002; 0.316, p=0.000); surface acting and deep acting on quality of work life (0.345, p=0.000; 0.216, p=0.008); all relations are statistically significant Hypotheses H3a, H3b, H4a, and H4b are all supported; furthermore, the effect of surface acting on quality of work life is noticeable higher than deep acting on quality of work life This result is in line with previous studies to examine the different effects between surface acting and deep acting (Hur et al., 2014; Grandey, 2003; Cho et al., 2017; Walsh et al., 2016);

however, the outcome examined in the study is quality of work life, not a negative

outcome

The supports of hypothesized relations of H3a, H3b, H4a, and H4b are good bases

to propose and examine the mediation effect of surface acting, deep acting on the relation between customer incivility and quality of work life The direct relation between

customer incivility and quality of work life found statistically insignificant and negative (total effect: estimate=-0.046, p=0.542) However, according to MacKinnon et al (2007), even the total effect is statistically insignificant, there still possibility of mediation effect The study continued to employ the Bootstrapping method with 95% Bias-corrected

confidence intervals for testing the mediation effect, the mediation effects found The mediation effect of surface acting is statistically significant (estimate=0.077, p=0.007) and noticeable higher than mediation effect of deep acting on the relation between

customer incivility and quality of work life (Estimate=0.056, p=0.014) The study noticed the opposite in sign between direct effect and indirect effect (mediation effect); which would be the case of inconsistent mediation; and surface acting, deep acting are acting as suppressor variable (MacKinnon et al., 2007) Therefore, mediation effects found and hypotheses H5a and H5b are both supported; the study adopted the formula suggested by MacKinnon et al (2007) to calculate the percent mediation, the calculation shows surface acting and deep acting mediate more than 50% of the effect in the relation between

customer incivility and quality of work life

5.1 Implications for theory and research

In the theory aspect, the results of the study address the importance of workplace

incivility which examined in the study are supervisor incivility, co-worker incivility and customer incivility While examining antecedents of workplace incivility, prior studies

found that customer incivility is the antecedent of the workplace incivility (Abid et al., 2015; Walker et al., 2014), the study found that supervisor incivility and co-worker incivility are antecedents of customer incivility This explains the “spiral” effect, “sense

of retaliation” and those whole involve in an incivility incident would see himself/herself

as both victim and perpetrator Based on this result and the strong correlation between experienced supervisor incivility and experienced co-worker incivility during analyzing collected data; the study finds that when “spiral effect” exists, the possibility that one factor can be antecedent to another and in turn the other factor can be antecedent to that factor

Researchers have been focused on examining the negative outcomes of customer incivility and negative outcomes of its relation with emotional labor; the study

successfully examined a non-negative outcome – quality of work life The separation of surface acting and deep acting in examining mediation effect between customer incivility and quality of work life would be a bold step; fortunately, the data collected in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam supported these hypothesized mediation relations; These supports are in line with the suggestion of Lewig and Dollard (2003) that emotional labor is a tool with both negative and positive effect In the case of the study, the inconsistent mediation effects found where surface acting and deep acting act as suppressor variables which significantly reduce the negative effect from customer incivility to quality of work life and both have positive effect on quality of work life The finding would suggest further studies focus more on testing the non-negative outcomes in association with emotional

labor; and testing the suppressor variable roles of surface acting and deep acting in other contexts

5.2 Implications for managers

The finding of the positive relation between internal incivility incident as experienced supervisor incivility and experienced co-worker incivility to customer incivility implies that the interactions inside a firm can affect its frontline employee and possibly reduce their job outcomes (reducing retail service quality) and increase turnover intention This suggests the managerial team should improve the interactions inside their firm, not only horizontally but also vertically; not only the interactions between employees but also between the employees and supervising team The set of code of conducts should be employed and applied for all employees and managers not only limited to frontline

employee

The similar level of effects of customer incivility to surface acting and deep acting found; the relations between surface acting to quality of work life is noticeably higher than surface acting which is in line with previous studies (Han et al., 2016; Cho et al., 2016; Hur, Han, Yoo, & Moon, 2014; Santos et al., 2014; Walsh, Dahling,

Schaarschmidt, & Brach, 2016; Cho et al., 2017; Hwa, 2012) Surface acting is the

emotional expression employed by the employee to cope with the situation but not their true feeling (Brotheridge and Grandey, 2002), and based on the perception of the

employee on the corporate emotional expression rules set by the firm Furthermore, both surface acting and deep acting act as suppressors in reducing negative effect found in the study; therefore, a thorough training program which help improving the perception of

frontline employee on corporate emotional expression rules would possibly reduce the effect of emotional labor and improve performance of the frontline employees

5.3 Conclusions

The study successfully examined experienced supervisor incivility and experienced worker incivility as antecedents of customer incivility in the context of frontline

co-employee in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and found the positive relations between

customer incivility to emotional labor and emotional labor to quality of work life

Identified that surface acting and deep acting are statistically significant related to quality

of work life and found the inconsistent mediation effects of the two dimensions of

emotional labor on the relation between customer incivility and quality of work life These findings suggest that Vietnam is similar with other countries, especially Asia countries, where the workplace incivility have been examined and negative effects found but it has not been well attended by both practitioners and researchers; the positive role of

emotional labor should be consider and testing in future researches

5.4 Limitations and implications for future research

The study found supports for all hypotheses; however, there are limitations First, the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values are small (less than 0.5) could be the results of which measurements adopted by the study were still relatively new to Vietnam context, but the study accepted and proceed with the analysis as the Composite Reliability (CR) is higher than 0.6 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981) Second, for achieving good model fit,

correlations between items created during analyzing data, this could be caused by the collection of data Data was collected by self-report questionnaire; the questionnaires

were distributed and collected from the scattered areas of Hồ Chí Minh City; interviewers distributed and collected printout questionnaires area by area Third, the study started with 37 measurement items; for sufficient model – data fit for structural equation model analysis, 9 items were removed All 9 items are measurement items for incivility

constructs (experienced co-worker incivility: 2 items; experienced supervisor incivility: 3 items; customer incivility: 4 items) This implicate that the scales for incivility are needed

to be modified for the context of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and the study might

misinterpreted the adopted scales from English to Vietnamese or civility and incivility norms in the context of Ho Chi Minh City; and/or Vietnam is differ than other contexts where workplace incivility examined However, the study noticed the problem and

performed a thorough qualitative survey to minimize the misinterpretation; therefore, the reason for scales modification would be the different in civility and incivility norms of the contexts where the scales were developed and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Future studies in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and other contexts where workplace incivility have not been examined should consider the local civility and incivility norms while adopting and modifying workplace incivility scales Furthermore, all items of the scales for quality

of work life and emotional labor are kept; the scale for quality of work life developed by Sirgy et al (2001) was adopted and successfully tested by a study in Vietnam (Nguyễn & Nguyễn, 2012); this confirms the validity of the scale for quality of work life adopted and modified by Nguyễn and Nguyễn (2012); further studies of quality of work life in

Vietnam should consider adopting this scale

6 Support information

6.1 Qualitative data collection procedures, guidelines and transcripts

The qualitative survey was implemented in 2 steps; (i) step one: group interview with persons who are well experienced in sales profession with 3 interviewees for revising the preliminary Semi-structured questionnaire for in depth interview, (ii) step two: in depth interview with sale trainers, supervisors with 3 interviewees to identify and confirmation

of the research problems

Preliminary questionnaire:

Graduation thesis study on interpersonal mistreatment behavior in workplace: incivility behavior causing distress and emotional damage which affecting life quality of the employee (frontline sale/service employee)

1 In your current profession, what do you find to be your most important responsibilities and tasks?

2 Can you tell me things you like most about your jobs?

3 Do you sometimes find difficult about your work? Can you tell me about them?

4

Did you ever being asked by trainee or new sales staff about how to deal with emotional problems in the line of work? Or how to deal with stressful situations? If yes, did they tell you where the source of the stresses or emotions come from?

Or, according to your experience, where do you think the stresses or emotional problems come from?