Letting go or getting back: How organization culture shapes frontline employee response to customer incivility

This study examines how different types of organizational culture moderate the effect of customer incivility on frontline employee (FLE) response. We propose that FLE forgiveness determines their customer-oriented behavior following customer incivility; FLE vengeance mediates the effect of customer incivility on dysfunctional behavior. We further posit that the effects of customer incivility on FLE forgiveness and vengeance would vary depending on the organizational culture (i.e., clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy). We test the research hypotheses by conducting a survey, followed by a scenario-based experiment. Our findings show that forgiveness of customer incivility determines FLEs’ customer-oriented behavior; whereas vengeance influences FLEs’ dysfunctional behavior following customer incivility. Furthermore, organizational culture moderates the effects of customer incivility on FLE responses such that clan culture and adhocracy culture positively moderate the effect of customer incivility on forgiveness, while market culture positively moderates the effect of customer incivility on vengeance.