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

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

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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
SUPERVISOR: Dr. NGUYỄN THỊ MAI TRANG

ID: 22150054
Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018

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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.

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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.
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Table of Contents

1.Introduction ...................................................................................................................
2.Theoretical background and hypotheses ....................................................................

2.1Customer incivility and its antecedents ...................................

2.2Emotional labor .......................................................................

2.2Quality of work life .................................................................
3.Research method ........................................................................................................

3.1Procedure and sample ...............................................................

3.2Measurements ..........................................................................

3.3Data collection .........................................................................

3.4Measurement refinement .........................................................
4.Data analyses results ...................................................................................................

4.1Confirmatory Factor Analysis .................................................

4.2Hypotheses testing – Structural Equation Model (SEM) ........
5.Discussion ..................................................................................................................

5.1Implications for theory and research .......................................

5.2Implications for managers .......................................................

5.3Conclusions .............................................................................

5.4Limitations and implications for future research ....................
6.Support information ....................................................................................................

6.1Qualitative data collection procedures, guidelines and transcr

6.2English questionnaire ..............................................................

6.3Vietnamese questionnaire ........................................................

6.4Analyses results .......................................................................
References ........................................................................................................................

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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

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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
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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
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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 wellbeing 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).

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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
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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”.

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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.
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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
well-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
“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;

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“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
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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, coworker, 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
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(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”:

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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; RauFoster, 2004). (p. 4, 5)
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”.
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Table 1: Recent studies of workplace incivility antecedents
Study

Abid et al.
(2015)


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

Walker et
al. (2014)

Vagarseyyedi
n (2015)

Schilpzand


et al.
(2016)


Bartlett et
al. (2008)

Lanzo et


al. (2015)

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
outsider.
H1: Experienced Supervisor Incivility is positively related to Customer Incivility.
H2: Experienced Co-worker Incivility is positively related to Customer Incivility.
2.2 Emotional labor
Brotheridge and Grandey (2002), and Brotheridge and Lee (2003) posit that emotional
labor consists of two dimensions, surface acting and deep acting; and the employment
of the emotional labor strategies may negatively affect employee and increase emotional
exhaustion. Other empirical research confirms this proposition and point out that surface
acting have negative effect on employee; meanwhile, deep acting may have positive
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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)

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