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Hurting or helping? The effect of service agents’ workplace ostracism on customer service perceptions

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  • Echo Wen Wan

    (University of Hong Kong)

  • Kimmy Wa Chan

    (Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

  • Rocky Peng Chen

    (Hong Kong Baptist University)

Abstract

Extant research confirms the importance of cocreating value with customers in service marketing, yet little is known about the impact of service agents’ work experiences on customers’ service perceptions. This research examines how service agents’ workplace ostracism from different sources (supervisors versus coworkers) influences customers’ perceived coproduction value, perceived service performance, and actual purchases. Three laboratory experiments and one survey reveal a double-edged sword effect of workplace ostracism and its contingency such that (1) supervisor ostracism reduces customers’ perceived control value in customer–agent coproduction through threatening service agents’ efficacy needs when the agents experience low servicing empowerment; (2) coworker ostracism enhances customers’ perceived relational value in coproduction through threatening service agents’ relational needs when they expect a long-term relationship with customers; and (3) customers’ perceived control and relational values increase their perceived service performance, and customer relational value also increases the amount of purchases. Our findings reveal that service agents’ workplace ostracism may actually help or harm customers’ service perceptions, depending on the source of ostracism. The results provide significant implications for how organizations can better manage employees’ perceived ostracism in the workplace and strategically improve customers’ experience in service coproduction with excluded agents.

Suggested Citation

  • Echo Wen Wan & Kimmy Wa Chan & Rocky Peng Chen, 2016. "Hurting or helping? The effect of service agents’ workplace ostracism on customer service perceptions," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(6), pages 746-769, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joamsc:v:44:y:2016:i:6:d:10.1007_s11747-015-0466-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11747-015-0466-1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Yang Woon Chung, 2020. "The Relationship between Workplace Ostracism, TMX, Task Interdependence, and Task Performance: A Moderated Mediation Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-11, June.
    2. Johannes Hofmeister & Dominik K. Kanbach & Jens Hogreve, 2024. "Service productivity: a systematic review of a dispersed research area," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 1249-1281, September.
    3. Christopher L. Newman & Melissa D. Cinelli & Douglas Vorhies & Judith Anne Garretson Folse, 2019. "Benefitting a few at the expense of many? Exclusive promotions and their impact on untargeted customers," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 76-96, January.

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