Frontline employees' visual appearance is important in many service industries. Positive emotion displays are especially crucial, as are esthetic displays such as dress color. However, emotion and esthetic displays have commonly been examined independently of each other in marketing research. We contribute to research and practice by drawing attention to customers' holistic perception of frontline employees, indicating that emotion displays and esthetic displays, such as dress color, are jointly processed. Across four experiments, we demonstrate that the effects of positive emotion displays on customer tipping and employee warmth can be amplified by using warm (vs. cold) dress colors. Drawing on emotions as social information theory, we show that this interaction is explained by a cognitive inferential (i.e., the perception of fit) and not by an affective pathway through positive affect. Our findings guide managers on how to choose dress colors to increase the beneficial effects of positive emotion displays.

中文翻译：

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走向全面的一线员工管理：积极情绪表现和着装颜色相互作用的调查

一线员工的视觉形象在许多服务行业中都很重要。积极的情绪表现尤其重要，如服装颜色等审美表现也是如此。然而，在营销研究中，情感和审美表现通常是相互独立的。我们通过关注客户对一线员工的整体感知来为研究和实践做出贡献，表明情感表现和审美表现（如服装颜色）是共同处理的。在四个实验中，我们证明了积极情绪表现对客户小费和员工热情的影响可以通过使用暖色（与冷色）的着装颜色来放大。将情绪作为社会信息理论，我们表明这种相互作用是通过认知推理来解释的（即，适合的感觉）而不是通过积极影响的情感途径。我们的研究结果指导管理人员如何选择衣服颜色以增加积极情绪展示的有益效果。