Many studies on the effects of frequent incivility of customers and coworkers on emotional exhaustion among hotel service workers are based on empirical research. Thus, this study aimed to analyze the effects of incivility of customers and coworkers in service encounters on the emotional exhaustion of hotel employees who may feel both mental and physical fatigue, and the relationship between the effect of customer-directed counterproductive work behavior (CWB) of employees who may deliberately commit evil deeds at work. Customer-directed CWB in hotel organizations, where customer service is the ultimate goal and the top priority, has a significant negative impact on corporate image.
It is necessary to analyze the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between customer incivility and coworker incivility experienced by service workers and customer-directed CWB. Furthermore, it is necessary to analyze the moderating effect and moderated mediating effect of emotion regulation ability, which is a personal resource.
Based on previous research, this study expanded the research scope to include the effect of incivility experience on customer-directed CWB. Moreover, for the first time, this study verified the simultaneous moderating effect and moderated mediating effect of emotion regulation ability for hotel companies. Through this process, this study presented the implications for a significant contribution to the management of human resource organizations in hotel companies.
This study attempted to understand customer-directed CWB empirically through the emotional exhaustion of negative emotions as a result of customer incivility and coworker incivility, investigate the psychological and mental fatigue experienced by employees in order to identify the seriousness of customer-directed CWB, and suggest practical response measures to address such issues.
This study aims to verify the moderating effect and moderated mediating effect of emotion regulation ability in the influence of customer and coworker incivility that hotel service workers experience on the customer-directed CWB through emotional exhaustion.
To analyze this research model, a self-report questionnaire survey was conducted on deluxe hotel employees in Seoul and Busan. A total of 309 copies of the questionnaire were used to verify the research model, and an empirical analysis was conducted by using Process Macro.
The analysis results are as follows. First, the experience of customer incivility and coworker incivility had a positive effect on the customer-directed CWB through emotional exhaustion. Therefore, hypotheses 1 and 2 were adopted.
Second, hypothesis 3 that the emotion regulation ability of hotel employees will moderate (mitigate) the effect of customer incivility on emotional exhaustion was rejected. However, hypothesis 4 that emotion regulation ability will moderate the effect of coworker incivility on emotional exhaustion was adopted.
Lastly, the result of the moderated mediating effect of emotion regulation ability in the influence of emotional exhaustion caused by customer and coworker incivility on the CWB is as follows. Hypothesis 5 that the emotion regulation ability of hotel employees will moderate the effect of customer incivility on CWB through emotional exhaustion was rejected. However, hypothesis 6 was adopted as a result of analyzing the moderated mediating effect of emotion regulation ability in the influence of coworker incivility on CWB through emotional exhaustion.
The implication of this study is that a countermeasure to prevent customer incivility is required, and another countermeasure is required to help employees recover from the experience of customer incivility. On the other hand, this study verified the significant moderating effect and moderated mediating effect of emotion regulation ability when employees experience coworker incivility. Therefore, organizational support to expand the emotion regulation ability is required.
The objective of this study is to identify the effects of customer incivility and coworker incivility experienced by hotel employees on emotional exhaustion, suggest directions to reduce them, and to propose the direction of efficient human resource management based on practical understanding of customer-directed CWB among hotel employees.
Additionally, it is expected that hotel service companies will achieve their ultimate goal of customer satisfaction by analyzing the differences in the relationship among the sub-variables of incivility experience as a moderating variable of emotion regulation ability.


Key Words: Customer Incivility, Coworker Incivility,
Emotional Exhaustion,
Customer-directed Counterproductive Work Behavior,
Emotion Regulation Ability