ABSTRACT

This study investigated the different effects of employee burnout dimensions (depersonalisation and emotional exhaustion) on customer service perceptions. We hypothesised that customers who interact with depersonalising employees will feel angry and hostile, which, in turn, should be related to low service perceptions. Emotional exhaustion was hypothesised to attenuate this effect because customers might perceive exhaustion as a reason for the depersonalising behaviour and may be affected less negatively. Each of the 156 study participants read 12 vignettes in which university employees displayed depersonalisation and emotional exhaustion symptoms. Multilevel analysis showed that employee depersonalisation negatively affected customer perceptions towards employee service and organisation service. Customer anger and hostility mediated this effect. Employee emotional exhaustion moderated the indirect effect such that depersonalisation had the strongest effect on customer service perceptions via anger and hostility when the employee did not display emotional exhaustion. Findings highlight the importance of studying the effects of depersonalisation and emotional exhaustion separately, and taking into account customer affective processes.

摘要

这项研究调查了员工倦怠维度（去个性化和情绪疲惫）对客户服务感知的不同影响。我们假设与去个性化员工互动的客户会感到生气和敌对，这反过来应该与对服务的低认知有关。假设情绪疲惫会减轻这种影响，因为客户可能会认为疲惫是去个性化行为的原因，并且可能会减少负面影响。156名研究参与者中的每位参与者均阅读了12篇短篇小说，其中大学员工表现出人格解体和情绪疲惫的症状。多层次分析表明，员工去人格化会对客户对员工服务和组织服务的看法产生负面影响。客户的愤怒和敌意介导了这种影响。员工情绪疲惫减轻了间接影响，因此当员工没有表现出情绪疲惫时，去个性化会通过愤怒和敌意对客户服务感知产生最大的影响。研究结果强调了分别研究去个性化和情绪疲惫的影响以及考虑客户情感过程的重要性。