Can employee workplace mindfulness counteract the indirect effects of customer incivility on proactive service performance through work engagement? A moderated mediation model

Abstract

Customer incivility is widespread in service industries, inevitable as employees offer service to a broad range of customers from diverse backgrounds. Stress caused by rude customers depletes front-line employees’ personal resources and develops to adverse work-related outcomes. Workplace mindfulness may provide resources to reduce the detrimental effect of customer incivility on work engagement. Furthermore, drawing from the conservation of resource theory(COR) and job demands-resouces (JD-R) model, this study investigates how work engagement mediates between customer incivility and employee proactive service performance among casino employees. The findings support that workplace mindfulness buffers the relationship between customer incivility and work engagement. Customer incivility is negatively associated with proactive service performance through work engagement. Theoretical and research implications and practical suggestions are proposed.