Customer Identification as a Moderator of Service Worker Reactions to Unfair Customer Treatment

Employee identification with their customers was investigated as an important form of relational identification that shapes service behavior. Building on models of third-party justice reactions, two potential responses were hypothesized in response to observed unfair treatment from managers toward customers: Justice modeling, in which manager behaviors toward customers are emulated by service employees; and justice restoration, in which service employees attempt to restore justice through extra-role performance and breaking rules on behalf of customers. Across a field study of nursing assistants and their supervisors and a laboratory study with a simulated customer service help desk, employee-customer identification was found to interact with perceived supervisor-customer interpersonal justice such that the relationship between perceived justice and pro-customer behavior was negative when employee-customer identification was high (consistent with justice restoration) and positive when employee-customer identification was low (consistent with justice modeling). These effects were found for both extra- role customer service performance and pro-customer rule breaking, but not for in-role customer service performance. Theoretical implications are suggested for third-party justice research, relational identification theory, and service management literature.