Customer sexual harassment and frontline employees’ service performance in China
研究了中国餐厅一线员工感知的顾客性骚扰如何通过增加情绪表达规则的维持难度来降低服务绩效，并发现员工传统价值观能缓冲这一负面效应。
Despite researchers’ increasing attention on customer sexual harassment, few studies have investigated its effects on the service performance of frontline employees. This study examined the link between customer sexual harassment, as perceived by frontline employees, and their service performance by focusing on the mediating role of difficulty in maintaining display rules and the moderating role of traditionality. The results from a field survey of 359 supervisor–subordinate dyads in a chain of restaurants in China provided evidence that difficulty in maintaining display rules mediates the negative relationship between customer sexual harassment and service performance. In addition, Chinese traditional values attenuate the relationship between customer sexual harassment and difficulty in maintaining display rules and the mediating effect of difficulty in maintaining display rules. Implications for theory, research and management practice are discussed.