Customer Incivility from Frequent Customers in the Context of Service Relationships: Critically Exploring Service Employees’ Coping Tactics Nolla Haidar School of Management Royal Holloway, University of London Doctor of Philosophy 1 Declaration of authorship I, Nolla Haidar, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: Date: 02-02-2020 2 Acknowledgments I would like to thank every person who made this PhD journey possible. First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisors Prof. Fiona Moore and Dr. Louise Ashley for their unwavering support, continious motivation, insightful feedback and foremost for believing in me. Without your “beyond words” presence throughout this journey, the outcome would have never been possible. I appreciate all your time you have invested in correcting my thesis, inspiring me and triggering my thoughts. I would also like to thank Dr. Laura Christie for reading throughout my chapters and for her unique motivation and inspiration. Second, I would like to thank dearly my parents, my siblings and their families for always believing in me and for absorbing my anger throughout this journey. I made it through because of your unconditional love and support. I will always be indebted to you. Thirdly, I would like to express my gratitude, love and respect to my husband Dr. Ziad Al Tanoury. Ziad has always been my number one motivator, and I thank him for reading my chapters and for his valuable feedback. Forthly, I am grateful for every person who supported me during this journey. Specifically, my dearest friends for their emotional support which has had a huge impact on my PhD. Lastly, I dedicate this thesis to my deceased sister Nelly. I wish she was alive to thank her deeply for all the courage and motivation she has given me, and for always believing in my potential. I’m terribly saddened she is not physically alive to witness the completion of this significant milestone. I will always love you and you are forever in my heart. 3 Abstract Customer incivility constitutes a significant area in human resources management, organisational behaviour and also in the marketing literature. A plethora of studies suggest that customer incivility is widespread among service organisations and renders the atmosphere of the workplace as harmful and detrimental to employees’ psychological and physical well-being, due to the abusive environment surrounding them. Although these studies are significant and provide substantial information about incivility, and its devastating impact on frontline employees during service encounters, there is still minimal focus on critically understanding customer incivility specifically during service relationships, within the restaurant industry. In the little research that does exist in the sector, frontliners are predominantly seen by scholars as the victims of the customers. Based on a qualitative study comprising an ethnographic methodology, data is gathered by participant- observation, informal interviews, content analysis, virtual ethnography and also from 12 interviewees (11 male and 1 female service employees) working at a Lebanese “authentic” restaurant, named here Be-Beirut, located in North West London. I argue that customers in this case study are frequent customers; thus, incivility takes a different form as compared to already studied restaurants. The empirical evidence indicates that many customers act uncivil and their actions are stimulated by either the management through its marketing activities, or by employees due to establishing service relationships with frequent customers. Employees cope with these incivilities in different ways, which could be either individual or collective. The coping tactics of employees are strongly shaped by the organisational power of both the target and the instigator. Those in power were able to impose their construction of incivility on those of less power. Therefore, this thesis broadens our understanding about the tough and stressful work environment that employees suffer from due to their exposure to customer incivility. The data shows that employees are vulnerable and are exposed to incivility due to the toxic management which is positioning them in a weaker power position relative to customers. Managerial and practical implications are discussed. 4 Table of Contents Declaration of authorship ....................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................. 3 Abstract.................................................................................................................................. 4 List of Tables ........................................................................................................................ 10 Chapter One: Introductory Chapter ....................................................................................... 11 1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 11 1.1 Personal motivation ................................................................................................................. 11 1.2 Research background ............................................................................................................... 13 1.2.1 Overview of ethnic restaurants in the UK ................................................................................................ 17 1.2.2 An overview of customers’ dining experiences at UK’s ethnic restaurants ............................................. 20 1.2.3 Theoretical background: Customer incivility in restaurants ..................................................................... 22 1.3 Research gap ............................................................................................................................ 25 1.4 Research aim and objectives .................................................................................................... 27 1.5 Research questions .................................................................................................................. 27 1.6 Significance of this study .......................................................................................................... 28 1.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 29 Chapter Two: Literature Review ............................................................................................ 31 2.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 31 2.1 Customer misbehaviours .......................................................................................................... 32 2.1.1 Overview of customer deviance, its forms and consequences ................................................................ 33 2.1.2 Overview of customer incivility and its forms .......................................................................................... 35 2.1.3 Customer incivility, emotional labour and its consequences on employees ........................................... 36 2.2 Antecedents of misbehaviours ................................................................................................. 42 2.2.1 Motives for customer deviance ................................................................................................................ 43 2.2.2 Motives for incivility ................................................................................................................................. 47 2.3 Introduction to coping strategies with customer incivility ........................................................ 56 5 2.3.1 Definition of coping .................................................................................................................................. 56 2.3.2 Problem-focused coping ........................................................................................................................... 58 2.3.3 Emotion-focused strategy ........................................................................................................................ 60 2.3.4 Gender and coping with customer incivility ............................................................................................. 64 2.4 Summary .................................................................................................................................. 67 Chapter Three: Methodology ................................................................................................ 69 3.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 69 3.1 Research method ..................................................................................................................... 69 3.1.1 Research philosophy ................................................................................................................................ 69 3.1.2 Research approach ................................................................................................................................... 71 3.2 Research context: Why a