IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v94y2019icp195-208.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is this smile for real? The role of affect and thinking style in customer perceptions of frontline employee emotion authenticity

Author

Listed:
  • Lechner, Andreas T.
  • Paul, Michael

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that authentic positive emotion displays from frontline employees outperform inauthentic displays with respect to important customer outcomes. Recent evidence, however, indicates variability in customer authenticity perceptions, which, to date, is poorly understood. This study jointly investigates two factors influencing customer authenticity perceptions, customer affect and thinking style, which represent feeling and thinking, two key domains of the human mind. The results of two experiments reveal that customers who experience positive affect perceive positive emotion displays of frontline employees as more authentic, regardless of its objective extent of authenticity. Likewise, customer thinking style of combined processing (highly rational and highly experiential) is found to create upward bias on authenticity perceptions. This study contributes to research on frontline employee-customer interactions by advancing the understanding of variability in customer perceptions of frontline employee emotion authenticity. Managers are advised to incorporate these findings into frontline employee management and service design.

Suggested Citation

  • Lechner, Andreas T. & Paul, Michael, 2019. "Is this smile for real? The role of affect and thinking style in customer perceptions of frontline employee emotion authenticity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 195-208.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:94:y:2019:i:c:p:195-208
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.06.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296317302060
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.06.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Hulland, 1999. "Use of partial least squares (PLS) in strategic management research: a review of four recent studies," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 195-204, February.
    2. Emilio Ferrara & Zeyao Yang, 2015. "Measuring Emotional Contagion in Social Media," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(11), pages 1-14, November.
    3. Adaval, Rashmi, 2001. "Sometimes It Just Feels Right: The Differential Weighting of Affect-Consistent and Affect-Inconsistent Product Information," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 28(1), pages 1-17, June.
    4. Paul, Michael & Hennig-Thurau, Thorsten & Groth, Markus, 2015. "Tightening or loosening the “iron cage”? The impact of formal and informal display controls on service customers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1062-1073.
    5. Bateson, John E G & Hui, Michael K, 1992. "The Ecological Validity of Photographic Slides and Videotapes in Simulating the Service Setting," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 19(2), pages 271-281, September.
    6. Van Dijk, Pieter A. & Smith, Liam D.G. & Cooper, Brian K., 2011. "Are you for real? An evaluation of the relationship between emotional labour and visitor outcomes," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 39-45.
    7. Becerra, Enrique P. & Badrinarayanan, Vishag & Kim, Chung-Hyun, 2013. "Influence of thinking tendencies on online transaction of hybrid retailers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 336-344.
    8. Jacoby, Jacob & Speller, Donald E & Berning, Carol A Kohn, 1974. "Brand Choice Behavior as a Function of Information Load: Replication and Extension," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 1(1), pages 33-42, June.
    9. Thomas P. Novak & Donna L. Hoffman, 2009. "The Fit of Thinking Style and Situation: New Measures of Situation-Specific Experiential and Rational Cognition," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 36(1), pages 56-72, June.
    10. Ruiz, Salvador & Sicilia, Maria, 2004. "The impact of cognitive and/or affective processing styles on consumer response to advertising appeals," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(6), pages 657-664, June.
    11. Sunil Gupta & Valarie Zeithaml, 2006. "Customer Metrics and Their Impact on Financial Performance," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 718-739, 11-12.
    12. Grandey, Alicia A. & Fisk, Glenda M. & Mattila, Anna S. & Jansen, Karen J. & Sideman, Lori A., 2005. "Is "service with a smile" enough? Authenticity of positive displays during service encounters," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 38-55, January.
    13. Easley, Richard W. & Madden, Charles S. & Dunn, Mark G., 2000. "Conducting Marketing Science: The Role of Replication in the Research Process," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 83-92, April.
    14. repec:cup:judgdm:v:6:y:2011:i:4:p:295-306 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yang, Bi & Li, Shanshi & Chen, Zhenyu & Mattila, Anna S., 2023. "Consumer responses to time-based sales messages," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    2. Jinsoo Hwang & Seongseop (Sam) Kim & Insin Kim & Seulgi Park, 2023. "Factors Affecting the Memorable Experiences of Chinese Customers in Duty-Free Shopping," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, October.
    3. Naveed Mushtaq & Muhammad Asim & Mohsin Raza Khan & Tanveer Illahi & Abdul Qayyum, 2021. "Impact Of Employee Displayed Emotion On Perceived Waiting Time Of Clients Among Islamic Banks Of Paksitan," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 10(1), pages 99-113, March.
    4. Herjanto, Halimin & Amin, Muslim & Purington, Elizabeth F., 2021. "Panic buying: The effect of thinking style and situational ambiguity," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    5. Gong, Taeshik & Park, JungKun & Hyun, Hyowon, 2020. "Customer response toward employees’ emotional labor in service industry settings," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    6. Olk, Stephan & Lindenmeier, Jörg & Tscheulin, Dieter K. & Zogaj, Adnan, 2021. "Emotional labor in a non-isolated service encounter - The impact of customer observation on perceived authenticity and perceived fairness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    7. Ruan, Yanya & Mezei, József, 2022. "When do AI chatbots lead to higher customer satisfaction than human frontline employees in online shopping assistance? Considering product attribute type," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    8. Thomas, Veronica L. & Fowler, Kendra, 2023. "Examining the outcomes of influencer activism," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    9. Chunhao Ma & Biying Wang & Caozhi Sun & Le Lin, 2023. "The Spillover Effect of Emotional Labor: How It Shapes Frontline Employees’ Proactive Innovation Behavior," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(3), pages 21582440231, August.
    10. Habib Alipour & Shahrzad Amelshahbaz & Farzad Safaeimanesh & Bahman Peyravi & Alireza Salavati, 2021. "The Impact of Environmental Stimuli on Hotel Service Employees’ Service Sabotage—Mediation Role of Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Dissonance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-18, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tobias Roeth & Patrick Spieth & Verena Joachim, 2019. "The Interaction Of Intuition And Rationality During Escalated Npd Decisions: An Investigation Of Decision-Makers’ Affective States," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 24(04), pages 1-31, June.
    2. Paul, Michael & Hennig-Thurau, Thorsten & Groth, Markus, 2015. "Tightening or loosening the “iron cage”? The impact of formal and informal display controls on service customers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1062-1073.
    3. Tibert Verhagen & Daniel Bloemers, 2018. "Exploring the cognitive and affective bases of online purchase intentions: a hierarchical test across product types," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 537-561, September.
    4. Xunyi Wang & Meiling Jiang & Wencui Han & Liangfei Qiu, 2022. "Do Emotions Sell? The Impact of Emotional Expressions on Sales in the Space‐Sharing Economy," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(1), pages 65-82, January.
    5. Sören Köcher & Hartmut H. Holzmüller, 2014. "Zu viel des Guten? Eine Analyse der Wirkung von Verbraucherschutzinformation," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 66(4), pages 306-343, June.
    6. Söderlund, Magnus & Mattsson, Jan, 2015. "Merely asking the customer to recommend has an impact on word-of-mouth activity," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 80-89.
    7. Gaucher, Benoît & Chebat, Jean-Charles, 2019. "How uncivil customers corrode the relationship between frontline employees and retailers," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-10.
    8. Chi, Nai-Wen & Chen, Pei-Chi, 2019. "Relationship matters: How relational factors moderate the effects of emotional labor on long-term customer outcomes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 277-291.
    9. Olk, Stephan & Lindenmeier, Jörg & Tscheulin, Dieter K. & Zogaj, Adnan, 2021. "Emotional labor in a non-isolated service encounter - The impact of customer observation on perceived authenticity and perceived fairness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    10. Yang, Bi & Li, Shanshi & Chen, Zhenyu & Mattila, Anna S., 2023. "Consumer responses to time-based sales messages," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    11. Azab, Carol & Clark, Terry, 2017. "Speak my language or look like me? – Language and ethnicity in bilingual customer service recovery," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 57-68.
    12. Fan, Rui & Xu, Ke & Zhao, Jichang, 2018. "An agent-based model for emotion contagion and competition in online social media," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 495(C), pages 245-259.
    13. Persson, Petra, 2018. "Attention manipulation and information overload," Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 78-106, May.
    14. Nault, Kelly A. & Sezer, Ovul & Klein, Nadav, 2023. "It’s the journey, not just the destination: Conveying interpersonal warmth in written introductions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    15. Venkatesh Shankar & Pablo Azar & Matthew Fuller, 2008. "—: A Multicategory Brand Equity Model and Its Application at Allstate," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 567-584, 07-08.
    16. Azman ISMAIL & Rizal ABU BAKAR & Wan Aishah WAN MOHD NOWALID & Nurul Hayati ADNAN & Mohamad Azhari ABU BAKAR & Syed Shah ALAM, 2014. "Does Career Program Have Effect On Employee Outcomes? Empirical Evidence," Management and Marketing Journal, University of Craiova, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 0(2), pages 152-166, November.
    17. Rakesh Sambharya & Martina Musteen, 2014. "Institutional environment and entrepreneurship: An empirical study across countries," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 314-330, December.
    18. Karunakaran, Arvind & Orlikowski, Wanda J. & Scott, Susan V., 2022. "Crowd-based accountability: examining how social media commentary reconfigures organizational accountability," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114401, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Al-Baraa Abdulrahman Al-Mekhlafi & Ahmad Shahrul Nizam Isha & Nicholas Chileshe & Mohammed Abdulrab & Anwar Ameen Hezam Saeed & Ahmed Farouk Kineber, 2021. "Modelling the Relationship between the Nature of Work Factors and Driving Performance Mediating by Role of Fatigue," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-17, June.
    20. Apriani Soepardi & Pratikto Pratikto & Purnomo Budi Santoso & Ishardita Pambudi Tama & Patrik Thollander, 2018. "Linking of Barriers to Energy Efficiency Improvement in Indonesia’s Steel Industry," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-22, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:94:y:2019:i:c:p:195-208. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.