The Waiter Spit in My Soup! Antecedents of Customer-Directed Counterproductive Work Behavior

Abstract

Although researchers have explored organizational and insider targets of counterproductive work behavior (CWB), no studies to date have examined customers as targets. The current study aimed to test a model of antecedents to CWB unique to service worker experiences, including customer stressors, emotional dissonance, and emotional exhaustion. We tested our model with 438 restaurant and bar employees. Results demonstrated that customer stressors were more strongly correlated with customer-directed CWB than with interpersonal or organizational CWB, and customer stressors had direct and indirect effects on customer-directed CWB through experiences of emotional dissonance and exhaustion.