We explored the question of how employees react to the perceived fairness of their manager’s treatment of customers. Current models of third-party justice reactions produce two tenable but mutually exclusive responses to observed manager-customer treatment: Relational affirmation, in which service employees engage customers in ways perceived to be congruent with manager-customer treatment, and relational restoration, in which they attempt to rebalance or restore their perceived relationship with customers to counteract observed treatment. Hypothesizing both effects, we explore the role of service employees’ relational identification with customers as a moderator of these two employee reactions. Across a field study of nursing assistants (n = 107) and their supervisors (n = 7), and a laboratory study with a simulated customer service help desk (n = 100), employee-customer identification was found to interact with supervisor-customer interpersonal justice such that the relationship between perceived justice and pro-customer behavior was positive when employee-customer identification was low (consistent with relational affirmation) and negative when employee-customer identification was high (consistent with relational restoration) (Study 1: β = −.22; Study 2: η² = .07).

我们探讨了员工如何对其经理对待客户的公平待遇做出反应的问题。当前的第三方正义反应模型对观察到的经理 - 客户待遇产生了两种站得住脚但相互排斥的回应：关系肯定，其中服务员工以被认为与经理 - 客户待遇一致的方式与客户互动，以及关系恢复，其中他们试图重新平衡或恢复他们与客户的感知关系，以抵消观察到的待遇。假设这两种影响，我们探讨了服务员工与客户的关系认同作为这两种员工反应的调节者的作用。在护理助理的实地研究中（n= 107) 和他们的主管 ( n = 7)，以及与模拟客户服务帮助台 ( n = 100) 的实验室研究，发现员工-客户识别与主管-客户人际正义相互作用，使得感知正义之间的关系当员工-客户认同度低（与关系肯定一致）时，亲客户行为是积极的，而当员工-客户认同度高时（与关系恢复一致），亲客户行为是消极的（研究 1：β = -.22；研究 2：η ² = .07)。