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Frontline employees’ cognitive appraisals and well-being in the face of

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 Journal of Services Marketing
Frontline employees’ cognitive appraisals and well-being in the face of customer aggression in an Eastern,
collectivist culture
Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha Paul Patterson Siriwut Buranapin Saranya Kantabutra
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Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha Paul Patterson Siriwut Buranapin Saranya Kantabutra , (2015),"Frontline employees’ cognitive
appraisals and well-being in the face of customer aggression in an Eastern, collectivist culture", Journal of Services Marketing,
Vol. 29 Iss 4 pp. 268 - 279
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 Frontline employees’ cognitive appraisals and
well-being in the face of customer aggression
in an Eastern, collectivist culture
Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha
Faculty of Business Administration, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Paul Patterson
School of Marketing, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and
Siriwut Buranapin and Saranya Kantabutra
Faculty of Business Administration, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Abstract
Purpose – This research aims to examine the cognitive appraisals of frontline employees (FLEs) when dealing with aggressive customers and the
impact on their well-being, as well as several moderator effects, in a collectivist, Eastern culture.
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Design/methodology/approach – A critical incident technique reveals the cognitive appraisal of FLEs who had recently experienced customer
aggression. Data were collected through qualitative, in-depth interviews with 35 FLEs in customer-facing roles in Thailand.
Findings – The FLEs perceived threats to self-esteem, physical well-being, goal completion at work, fairness or equity and sense of control when
dealing with customer aggression. These cognitive appraisals affected their psychological well-being in the form of negative affectivity, anxiety,
depression and stress. Importantly, factors that moderate (exacerbate or weaken) the impact of customer aggression on cognitive appraisal, and
cognitive appraisal on psychological well-being were revealed, including “customer is always right” philosophy, social status, public versus private
context and social support.
Practical implications – Organisations should pay more attention to FLEs’ psychological well-being and how they interpret and deal with customers’
misbehaviour and aggression. The research identifies factors that moderate the impact of customer aggression on psychological well-being.
Originality/value – This is the first empirical paper that has examined how FLEs cope with customer aggression in a collectivist, south-east Asian
context where social norms calibrate FLEs’ responses to customer aggression. It is also the first research that adopts a contingency approach to
understanding how FLEs cope with customer aggression – i.e. when faced with customer aggression, under what contingency conditions do FLEs
cognitive appraisals have a stronger or weaker impact on their psychological well-being?
Keywords Services, Frontline employees, Cognitive appraisals, Collectivist culture, Customer aggression, Psychological well-being
Paper type Research paper

Introduction 2012; Harris and Daunt, 2013). For example, when JetBlue
flight attendant Steven Slater responded to an argument with
Research, in recent times, has focused on employees as
a rude passenger by leaping out the emergency chute, shouting
responsible for triggering customer dissatisfaction, anger and
“That’s it. I’ve had it” (Leach, 2010), it attracted widespread
even rage. Frontline services employees (FLEs) thus are
attention around the world, even prompting an re-creation on
portrayed as perpetrators, with customers as the victims
YouTube. In Jakarta, Indonesia, passengers frustrated with
(Bougie et al., 2003; McColl-Kennedy et al., 2009;
the service provided by a budget airline went so far as to smash
Surachartkuntonkum et al., 2013). Yet, the very people that a
its offices at the Soekarno-Hatta airport (Febrina, 2009). In
service organisation seeks to serve are increasingly the
Australia, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU,
perpetrators of aggressive, deviant behaviours that lead to
2012) is taking customer aggression very seriously, noting that
employee stress and burnout, especially among FLEs who face
“official statistics revealed 5,900 reports of aggressive
customers every day, need to achieve ever-increasing sales and
incidents towards Centre link, Medicare and Child Support
service targets and must reconcile the demands of supervisors
Agency workers in the 2011-2012 financial year – up 400 on
and customers (Ben-Zur and Yagil, 2005; Chan and Wan,
the year before”.
Customer aggression also can damage the organisation in
various ways (McColl-Kennedy et al., 2010). Experiences
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0887-6045.htm
The authors would like to thank the Office of Higher Education
Commission (Thailand) for supporting the scholarship in studying Ph.D.

Journal of Services Marketing Received 16 December 2013

29/4 (2015) 268 –279 Revised 26 July 2014
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0887-6045] 7 October 2014
[DOI 10.1108/JSM-12-2013-0328] Accepted 8 October 2014

268
 Cognitive appraisals and well-being
Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha et al.
with aggressive customers have various negative effects on
FLEs, including burnout, damaged psychological well-being,
feelings of dehumanisation, diminished on-the-job
performance and greater turnover intentions (Grandey et al.,
2004; Harris and Reynolds, 2003; Karatepe et al., 2009). The
harm is also cumulative, such that it can generate long-term,
emotionally oriented problems. That is, service encounters in
which FLEs are turned into victims of psychological and/or
physical aggression can inflict serious damage (Dallimore
et al., 2007; Reynolds and Harris, 2006). Furthermore, in
service organisations, FLEs are the pivotal contact point
between the organisation and its customers and the public face
of the firm or brand. As the organisation’s marketing-oriented
boundary spanners, they must represent the firm effectively in
interactions with customers (Bitner et al., 1990) because they
have critical impacts on perceptions of service quality (Brady
et al., 2012). Therefore, the physical and psychological
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well-being of FLEs during and after face-to-face interactions
with customers should be a primary concern for managers.
Rather than focusing on employees as instigators of
aggression, we adopt a different perspective and focus on
situations where customers are the instigators who make
service encounters stressful for employees. Accordingly, we
address personal well-being, an important research priority
area in service science research (Ostrom et al., 2010).
Moreover, we undertake the study in a south-east Asian
collectivist culture (Thailand) where social norms and values
impact the way FLEs respond to such aggression. The
theoretical foundations for this study are Hofstede’s (1980)
cultural values, and the theory of stress and coping (Lazarus
and Folkman, 1984), which posits that, in stressful situations,
people appraise whether the situation is beneficial or harmful
to their well-being, then initiate an emotional response and
coping behaviours. Our focus is the primary cognitive
appraisals FLEs exhibit, automatically and subconsciously,
when they face a stressful situation (i.e. aggressive customer)
that threatens their well-being, values or psychological needs
(Lazarus, 1991; Patterson et al., 2009; Schneider and Bowen,
1999). By explicating how FLEs deal with customer
aggression in a face-to-face situation, then interpreting the
stressful encounters, this research contributes to scholarly
literature on employee well-being and can also aid service
organisations in delineating individual, organisational and
situational factors that exacerbate or attenuate psychological
damage that FLEs suffer. Extant research that has examined
incidents of customer aggression and FLEs’ cognitive
appraisal and psychological effects is sparse (Rafaeli et al.,
2012). Hence, we seek a deeper understanding of how FLEs
appraise customer aggression, as well as how the nature of
cognitive appraisal influences the psychological well-being of
employees.
The contribution of this study is threefold:
1 we tease out a range of contingency factors that moderate
the customer aggression – cognitive appraisal and
cognitive appraisal – FLE psychological well-being
associations;
2 we examine the cognitive appraisals of stressful service
encounters from a FLE perspective; and
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Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 29 · Number 4 · 2015 · 268 –279
3 we undertake the study in a highly collectivist Asian
culture where social norms and values have an impact on
the outcome of stressful service encounters.
Conceptual development
Customer aggression and FLEs’ cognitive appraisal
The considerable literature to date uses a range of terms to
describe customer aggression, such as customer misbehaviour
(Huang et al., 2010), customer deviance (Reynolds and
Harris, 2006), problem customers (Bitner et al., 1994; Poddar
and Madupalli, 2012), unfriendly customers (Walsh, 2010),
unfair customers (Berry and Seiders, 2008), angry customers
(Dallimore et al., 2007), customer rage (Surachartkuntonkum
et al., 2013) and dysfunctional customer behaviour (Harris
and Reynolds, 2003; Fisk et al., 2010). Such customer
behaviours might include verbal abuse, such as raised voices,
sarcasm, screaming, intimidation, yelling and swearing;
physical threats, such as slamming down fists, shoving or
slamming down a phone; and non-verbal signals, including
angry facial expressions, staring and other body language
(Grove et al., 2004; Huang et al., 2010). In response to such
actions, FLEs likely undergo a cognitive appraisal process
where they evaluate the significance of the events (threats) for
their own personal well-being (Lazarus, 1993), values,
personal beliefs, psychological needs or goals.
The theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman,
1984) provides insights into how FLEs appraise and cope with
situations involving customer aggression, which induces
negative emotions. During an appraisal of a situation, a person
evaluates whether a particular (stressful) encounter is relevant
to his or her well-being and, if so, if it is likely to be harmful or
beneficial in relation to both their values (e.g. sense of fairness,
self-esteem) and their physical well-being. A cognitive
appraisal refers to the process of categorizing an encounter,
with respect to its significance to well-being (Lazarus and
Folkman, 1984). Lazarus (1991) also proposes that the
appraisal stage offers a cognitive mediator of stress reactions.
Furthermore, the cognitive appraisal of an encounter affects
the person’s emotional experience. For example, if FLEs
interpret customer aggression as significant for their well-
being, they are likely to anticipate violations of their
self-esteem, threats to their physical safety or barriers to their
completion of work goals (Schneider and Bowen, 1999;
Surachartkuntonkum et al., 2013). In examining consumers’
cognitive appraisals of stressful service failures, Patterson et al.
(2009) and Schneider and Bowen (1995) found threats to
fairness, threats to self-esteem, threats to self or loved ones
and need for control, as the most prominent appraisals. With
this in mind, it seems logical to assume that when viewed from
the other side of the service encounter, employees would
similarly appraise threats to fairness, self-esteem, the security
of self or loved ones, and control. Therefore, we propose:
P1. Customer aggression leads FLEs to develop cognitive
appraisals of various threats, including those to
self-esteem, physical well-being, need for control and to
their sense of fairness.
 Cognitive appraisals and well-being
Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha et al.
Cognitive appraisals and psychological well-being
Not only does the cognitive appraisal of an event influence
psychological well-being, in general, but perceived job stress
also likely mediates the association between work demands
and health outcomes (Mark and Smith, 2008). Therefore,
FLEs faced with customer aggression that they perceive as
threatening are engaged in a stress-inducing encounter, which
can lead to negative health outcomes. For example, call centre
operators experience customer verbal aggression an average of
ten times per day and perceive this verbal aggression as
stressful and threatening (Grandey et al., 2004). These
perceived threats in turn have been shown to impact FLEs’
emotional exhaustion and absenteeism rates. In an appraisal
setting, Lazarus (1993) refers to psychological stress as a
reaction to threats. We consider FLEs’ cognitive appraisals as
key mechanisms for mediating the effect of customer
aggression on psychological well-being and predict:
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P2. FLEs’ cognitive appraisals will mediate the relationship
between customer aggression and their psychological
well-being.
Culture
Considerable evidence in social psychology indicates that
psychological processes are culturally contingent (Fiske et al.,
1998). “Culture” is defined here as the sum of all behavioural
norms and patterns collectively shared by a social group”
(Triandis, 1995). Since service encounters are first and
foremost social exchanges, it stands to reason that culture
might influence the outcome of interactions between
customers and FLEs. Hofstede (1980) presented four cultural
dimensions to characterize East–West cultures in particular.
The four dimensions are power distance, individualism/
collectivism, masculinity/femininity and uncertainty
avoidance. According to Hofstede’s study, Asian countries
such as Thailand, Malaysia, India and China are classified as
highly collectivist societies which manifests in a commitment
to family and ingroup members and strong relationship and
support of each other (Hofstede, 1984). Conflict avoidance
and desire for harmony is also features of collectivist societies
(Triandis, 1995). A common feature of Eastern cultures and
one that is especially relevant to our study is high power
distance society where it is expected and indeed accepted that
power and influence will be unequally shared. Hence in
collectivist, high power distance societies like Thailand social
status is important, and people accept their position in society
(Liu and Mackinnon, 2002). Uncertainty avoidance is also a
feature of Eastern cultures, which is the degree to which
people feel threatened by ambiguous situations and are
considerate of others “face” (Triandis, 1995). In this study,
these cultural values calibrate the manner in which FLEs
appraise and cope with situations that involve dealing with
customer aggression.
Potential moderators
Social status stems from the idiom of servant and master,
which persists in many service contexts (Macdonald and
Sirianni, 1996) and especially in high power distance societies.
Power distance refers to the extent to which inequality
between the more and less powerful members of society is
considered acceptable (Hofstede, 1980). Cultures with a high
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Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 29 · Number 4 · 2015 · 268 –279
power distance orientation (e.g. China, Thailand, Vietnam
and Indonesia) assume that “superiors” and “subordinates”
are on different social levels (Triandis, 1995). These cultures
also tend to assume the persistence of existing power
structures between upper and lower classes. For example, in
Thailand, people expect and indeed accept inequality as a
social norm. Consequently, people of influence and power are
seen as superior and have power over others in society (Pimpa,
2012). Managerial rhetoric in these cultures also implies that
the customer is “sovereign”, and FLEs are expected to do
everything they can to satisfy customers. This power
imbalance encourages high social status (customers) to
mistreat lower status (FLEs) persons (Rafaeli et al., 2012).
Therefore, aggression from a customer with perceived higher
status should appear more threatening to FLEs than a lower
status customer, and is therefore, likely to exacerbate the link
between customer aggression and cognitive appraisal. Thus,
we propose:
P3a. In a collectivist culture such as Thailand, when FLEs
perceive that an aggressive customer has higher (lower)
social status, the association between customer
aggression and cognitive appraisal (threat) will be
stronger (weaker).
Whilst the mantra: “the customer is always right” has almost
been extinguished in developed economies, it still exists in
many organisations in developing Asian economies (e.g.
Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia) (Triandis,
1995). Unfortunately, this mantra can encourage customers to
behave badly (Yagil, 2008), in that the organisation tacitly
accepts the notion that FLEs should be blamed for any service
failure, leaving the customers as victims (Bishop et al., 2005).
Berry and Seiders (2008) find that some customers take
advantage of being “always right” by demanding privileges
and compensation, which has direct effects on companies,
employees and other customers. When FLEs must adhere to
such a policy, it may exacerbate the stress they perceive and
the accompanying damage to their well-being in interactions
with aggressive customers. Conversely, when FLEs are
unencumbered by this policy, they feel more empowered and
so lessen the impact of cognitive appraisals of the threats to
well-being. That is:
P3b. When FLEs adhere to a policy that reinforces “the
customer is always right” organisational policy,
cognitive appraisal (i.e. threats) following customer
aggression will have a stronger negative impact on their
psychological well-being.
Methodology
Participants
Considering the relative lack of understanding of how FLEs
respond to aggressive customer behaviour, we used an
exploratory research design, using the critical incident
technique and content analysis. Thirty-five FLEs in various
industries (cashiers in department stores, salespersons, retail
bank customer service officers, waiters, receptionists in hotels
and hospitals) in a major urban area in Thailand, who had a
recent experience in dealing with customer aggression, were
 Cognitive appraisals and well-being
Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha et al.
recruited as participants. They received financial
remuneration of 200 Thai Baht (USA$7) to encourage them
to share their stories and experiences. The interviews ranged
from 50 to 90 minutes and were digitally recorded.
Participants included 28 female and 7 male FLEs, ranging in
age from 20 to 45 years, with work experience of 1-18 years.
The gender ratio of roughly 4:1 is reflective of the proportion
of females in non-professional frontline service positions in
Thailand.
Critical incident technique
For this study, involving high contact and social interactions
between customers and FLEs, we adopted the critical incident
technique (CIT), which supported an exploration of dynamic
cognitive appraisals and emotional response processes during
the service encounter (Patterson et al., 2009). It also has been
used previously to examine human behaviour and gain
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insights into phenomena of interest in service marketing and
management (Chung-Herrera et al., 2004; Fisk et al., 2010;
Grace, 2007). The CIT consists of procedures for collecting
direct observations of human behaviour (Flanagan, 1954).
Bitner et al. (1990) cite, as one form of critical incident, the
specific interaction between a customer and employee that is
especially satisfying or dissatisfying. That is, only particularly
memorable service incidents are classified as critical.
Specifically, we asked participants to describe a memorable,
recent experience (within the previous six months) they had
dealing with an aggressive customer. The questions prompted
them to describe situations in detail, such as “Please tell us the
story about this experience when you faced an aggressive
customer” “Tell us what happened”, “What were you
thinking?” “How did you feel?” “What did you do?” and
“Why did you behave that way?”
Analytical procedure
We halted the data collection at the point of theoretical
saturation, when no new insights emerged (Strauss and
Corbin, 1998). The interviews were recorded and transcribed.
Our method was partially deductive, in that some collected
data (cognitive appraisals in particular) were classified
according to a priori research frameworks (Patterson et al.,
2009; Schneider and Bowen, 1995), while other themes (in
particular the moderator variables) emerged from the CIT
interviews. We began with annotated transcripts, and then two
researchers classified the data into categories on the basis of
categories from prior cognitive appraisal and customer
aggression literature (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984; Reynolds
and Harris, 2006; Schneider and Bowen, 1995). Next, we
identified various themes and sub-themes. Through another
review of the transcripts, we coded all data and applied the
identified sub-themes. To confirm the accuracy of our
findings, the themes and data coding were revised by another
researcher, and the specific themes that emerged were verified
by three frontline retail supervisors as offering face validity
(Creswell, 2003). Unresolved incidents unsolved were sent
the third judge, who made a final decision. Inter-judge
reliability was 87 per cent, which exceeds the accepted
benchmark of 80 per cent (Latham and Saari, 1984).
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Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 29 · Number 4 · 2015 · 268 –279
Findings
Consistent with literature on stressful life events, in general,
our data analysis revealed various cognitive appraisals adopted
by employees and their consequences for well-being in
encounters with aggressive customers. More importantly,
perhaps, is that our analysis identified several contingency
factors (moderators) that either ameliorated or worsened the
impact of customer aggression on the psychological well-being
of FLEs. Figure 1 depicts a summary of results.
Cognitive appraisals by FLEs
Five critical cognitive appraisal dimensions emerged from our
interview data which were consistent with prior research:
threats to self-esteem (including loss of face), physical
well-being, work goals, sense of fairness and need for control.
Threats to self-esteem
These refer to the person’s view of his or her own self-worth
(Rosenberg, 1965). In our study, many FLEs claimed that
customers were disrespectful to them during the service
encounter and that such disrespect induced a sense of
dehumanization. Threats to employees’ self-esteem were the
most frequently mentioned cognitive appraisal. In one
example, when a customer dissatisfied by the unmarked
price of vegetables, threw them down in front of the employee,
the grocery shop assistant (female, 30 years) stated:
I helped her to check the price of the vegetables three times [. . .] She was
upset and threw the parsley down in front of me [. . .] I thought, I am a
human being. I served her very well, why did she have to do this to me? [. . .]
She didn’t respect me as a human. She didn’t save my face.
This comment introduces the concept of “face”, which is
fundamentally important in Eastern cultures and which,
although difficult to define, refers generally to a sense of
honour or reputation (Ubonsakul, 2009). In Eastern cultures,
a loss of face can have disastrous personal consequences and
must be avoided at all costs. In Thai culture, saving face is
keeping one’s self-respect, social standing and dignity intact so
Thais do not like to appear publicly foolish (Pan et al., 2013).
For example, when parents knew that their child failed an
exam and the topic was discussed among other parents, they
may experience a loss of face. Tactics for coping with a loss of
face and restoring face in turn are central to restoring
self-esteem (Triandis, 1995). In many Asian countries, saving
face is even a dominant force in shaping effective interpersonal
encounters and actions, so the incident with the parsley
(described above) likely would have devastating effects on an
Eastern shop assistant’s self-esteem.
Figure 1 Cognitive appraisal of frontline employee
Contingency factors Contingency factors
·· Social status
Public-private
· ‘Customer is always right’
philosophy
context
· Social support
Aggressive customer Cognitive appraisal Psychological well-
behaviour being
· Threat of physical
violence
·· Threats to self-esteem
Threats to physical well- ·· Negative affect
Stress
·· Verbal comment
Non-verbal ··
being
Threats to work goals
Threats to fairness
· Anxiety, depression
expressions
· Threats to control
Customer Side Employee Side
 Cognitive appraisals and well-being
Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha et al.
Similarly, a department store salesperson (female, 27 years),
in dealing with a foreign customer, recalled:
He swore at me, saying I was stupid and retarded. It made me feel very bad
[. . .] He should talk more politely to me than this. He didn’t respect me. I
am a human like him. If he was a salesperson and was scolded by a
customer, how would he feel?
Beyond face, some employees’ self-esteem was damaged when
they felt regarded as unimportant, that is, just a lowly paid
employee. A customer service officer in a retail bank
recounted (female, 29 years):
When I met her, I greeted her with a “Wai” but she didn’t respond back.
Her face was not friendly. She looked at me from head to foot. She spoke
very loudly and even bellowed at me. It made me feel like I was her
employee.
Threats to physical well-being
FLEs frequently experience physical threats from customers
(Bishop et al., 2005). These threats to the feelings of security
and safety cause stress and precede coping behaviour, as
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illustrated by a department store public relations employee
(female, 26 years) who recounted the following experience:
Two customers (a mom and her daughter) came to the public relations
department. The mom asked me to give her money back. She claimed that
she had bought sausages 4 days before that were rancid [. . .] I made a call
to the fresh food department. The staff member in that department asked
me how the sausages were. I said that they were normal and did not smell
that bad. The daughter heard what I said and became very angry and
shouted. She asked me if I thought it was rancid or not, then she shoved the
sausage into my mouth and said to me “eat it.” I was very frightened and I
couldn’t control myself. I pushed her hand out of the way and the sausage
went flying into her face unexpectedly. This made her get even angrier.
In this instance, the customer’s behaviour crossed from verbal
expressions of anger to overt aggression and a direct physical
threat to the employee. Another FLE, a senior cashier (female,
30 years) in a department store, described:
A customer came to buy shampoo because she saw it in a brochure that
stated, “buy one get one free”. She took two 375 ml bottles of shampoo and
went to the cashier to pay for them. The receipt showed that she was
charged for two bottles. She asked why it was like this. I asked a staff to
check the price in the relevant department. After a minute he came back and
said that the promotional items were actually the smaller bottles of
shampoo. The customer got angry and showed the brochure to me and
claimed that the volume of shampoo stated on brochure could not be seen
clearly. Then, she threw the two big bottles of shampoo at me which made
me frightened.
Threats to fairness
A feeling of injustice or of being cheated or treated unfairly
may arise because customers seek to take advantage of others,
regardless of common decency, reasonableness, or respect for
others’ rights (Berry and Seiders, 2008). Such customer
behaviours are problematic for FLEs, including the employee
(male, 30 years) who explained why he felt treated unfairly:
A customer asked me to give him a new mobile phone, claiming that his one
was scratched on the screen. He spoke very loudly [. . .] I had already
carefully checked the phone when I gave it to the customer [. . .] When I saw
the scratches on the screen, I didn’t think that it was caused by our
department. I wondered if he had done it himself but tried to claim the
warranty to get a new one. When I questioned him he got very angry. I felt
he was really trying to cheat me.
Employees also must put more effort into managing their
emotions in interpersonal transactions (Rupp et al., 2008),
particularly if they confront customers seeking to cheat them
or the organisation. One interviewee, a cashier (female, 23
years) in a hotel, stated:
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Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 29 · Number 4 · 2015 · 268 –279
When he pointed at me, I thought why did he have to pick on me? Why did
he get angry at me? It was his fault. He didn’t make a reservation with me.
I was just the one who looked after people checking in.
Threats to work goals
Some employees sense that they will not be able to achieve an
important goal in their jobs. During the appraisal process,
FLEs consider their personal stake in the event and its threat
to their work goals (Bagozzi et al., 1999). If their work goals
might be hindered, they likely develop specific emotional
reactions to the situation (Stewart, 2005). For example, an
employee at a children’s entertainment centre (male, 23)
reported:
The parents wanted their kids to play in the balloon house. The time was
8.30 p.m. It was closed already. But they still insisted to do so. I didn’t allow
them to get in because there were no staffs to take care of their kids. I
followed the company policy. A mom pointed at me and bluffed that they
would inform my boss [. . .] If my boss gets a complaint, my salary will be
subtracted. I would not be the best employee [. . .] I was very angry.
An FLE (female, 38 years) similarly intended to perform well
by helping other customers but was impeded by a customer:
She is a university teacher. She stared at me with anger when I served other
customers. I don’t want customers to wait for hours. She wanted to be the
first in the queue. She then complained to the manager [. . .] I was
frightened because if this customer complains to my headquarter, my
achievement of my KPI and our branch KPI will go down.
Threats to control
Finally, people tend to perform better when they can make
decisions freely. Without a sense of control, they experience a
sense of helplessness and may engage in maladaptive
behaviours (Bowen and Johnston, 1999). When a customer
has more power or control relative to the employee, the FLE
cannot control the situation. An FLE (female, 28 years) in a
telecommunications company noted her experience of
helplessness in dealing with a customer:
I thought that I would let him swear at me until he felt satisfied. I didn’t
react to him. Even if I did reply, I would be wrong as I am the service
provider [. . .] I thought I won’t even ask him. I had to say an apology even
though it was not my fault [. . .] I felt powerless.
When faced with an extremely aggressive customer whom they
could not control, several respondents believed the best
response was to remain passive. As a dental clinic receptionist
(female, 23 years) described:
When she scolded me, I was angry. It wasn’t my fault. I don’t know why she
had to be like this. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t know how to respond to her.
I just said to her “yes [. . .] yes [. . .] yes.” I thought that it was useless to
explain anything to her.
This analysis of critical indents thus reveals the cognitive
appraisals of FLEs when dealing with aggressive customers,
which can be categorised into themes that reflect various types
of threats: to self-esteem, to physical well-being, to work goals,
to fairness and to control. Collectively, these findings support
Research P1.
Consequences of cognitive appraisals
Interactions with others (customers and coworkers) at work
can have psychological consequences (Sloan, 2012). Lazarus
(1993) suggests that psychological distress is a reaction to
various kinds of threats. Some employees can deal well with
aggressive customers during particular incidents, but constant
encounters with unpleasant events in the workplace can be
both fatiguing and distressing. When FLEs experience
repeated violations of their self-esteem, physical well-being,
 Cognitive appraisals and well-being
Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha et al.
sense of justice and fairness or work goals, they likely exhibit
poor psychological well-being, which may make it more
difficult for them to perform their work tasks. Our findings
revealed that the psychological consequences that employees
experienced after dealing with aggressive customers included
negative feelings, stress, anxiety and even depression. This is
illustrated as follows.
Negative affect
Not surprisingly, the experience of FLEs being forced to deal
with deviant and aggressive customers has been shown in past
studies to induce negative emotions (Harris and Daunt,
2013). The interviewees for this study consistently described
feelings of anger, fear, embarrassment and annoyance during
and following their encounters with aggressive customers. For
example, a salesperson (female, 20 years) in a specialty retail
store revealed her embarrassment and fear when scolded by a
foreign customer:
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I didn’t want the foreigner to yell at me again [. . .] I felt I was incompetent.
It was an incident where I was embarrassed and scared. Now I am too
nervous and don’t want to serve foreign customers.
Another case involved an FLE (male, 27 years) in an appliance
shop. When he dealt with a bullying customer, he got very
angry and wanted to attack the customer, explaining:
He shouted at me loudly. He threatened me. He would punch me and asked
me to go outside the shop to fight [. . .] I was very angry. I wanted to scold
him and punch him.
Stress
Customer abusive behaviour is a major source of stress for
service workers (Goussinsky, 2011). Stress results from an
interaction with an environment that is perceived as too
demanding or threatening to their well-being (Yasin and
Dzulkifli, 2009). In aggressive encounters, FLEs perceive an
imbalance between their capabilities and the situational
demands. If they could not manage to cope, they felt anxious
and very tense, as recounted by a receptionist at a dental clinic
(female, 23 years):
She bawled out in my ear. It seemed I made a severe mistake. It wasn’t my
fault After talking with her, I was very angry. I cried at the counter. I was
nervous and worried. I could not do anything.
The intensity of rudeness or aggressiveness of a customer also
can induce an immediate negative cognitive appraisal and
subsequent stress. For example, a hospital receptionist
(female, 38 years) described her states when she was yelled by
patient:
He swore at me with rude words. I tried to explain and apologize to him, but
he was defiant. I felt I was losing my self-worth [. . .] I was frightened and
panicked. I felt like I had something stuck in my throat [. . .] My face was
pale and my hands were cold. I could not cope with him and found it very
stressful.
Anxiety and depression
Work stress increases anxiety, a psychological disorder that is
associated with significant suffering and impairment in
functioning (Yasin and Dzulkifli, 2009) and depression, which
is an experience of extreme unhappiness or distress (Sarason
and Sarason, 2002). After dealing with aggressive customers,
FLEs may exhibit feelings of sadness, weakness,
disappointment, frustration, despair, helplessness or
hopelessness. The fear of a critical incident reoccurring also
emerged from our interviews. A waitress (female, 32 years) in
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a restaurant who reported her anxiety when she was abused by
a customer:
He pointed at me and swore loudly. He then tried to throw a glass of alcohol
at me. I walked away. I was scared. I was afraid that he might attack me
[. . .] I was worried. I was afraid that he would come again and would
misbehave in the same way to me again. I was anxious. I was unhappy when
I worked. I was scared to see this kind of customer again.
Situations appraised as threatening predicted a greater level of
depression (Gall and Evans, 1987). Depressed workers
generally perform poorly because they are distracted by the
negative incidents and frustrated in their work. As a banker
(female, 29 years) reported in response to an angry, high
society customer:
She bellowed very loudly at me. It seemed there was a black dot in my heart.
I had failed in my work when this customer blamed me. I thought a lot. She
didn’t respect me as I am human [. . .] On that day, I could not do anything
more. On the next day, it was still on my mind. I thought of her face when
I ate, even when I slept. As I worked, I thought about this incident. It was
like an accumulative tension [. . .] I still remember it until this day.
In summary, the verbatim quotes explicate the psychological
damage that accompanied various cognitive appraisals
(threatening situations). This provides evidence of cognitive
appraisal as a mediator between customer aggression and
FLEs psychological well-being, in support of P2.
Contingency factors
During the interview process, it became apparent that certain
conditions existed that moderated the customer aggression –
cognitive appraisal and cognitive appraisal–psychological
well-being associations. Four contingency conditions emerged
from our interview program that either strengthen or attenuate
the impact of customer aggression on employee well-being.
For the first linkage, customer aggression– cognitive appraisal,
one factor was predicted (see social status in research P3a),
while public/private context setting emerged from the
interviews. For the second linkage, cognitive
appraisal–psychological well-being, the “customer is always
right” philosophy was predicted in P3b, whereas social support
as a possible moderating factor emerged from our in-depth
interviews. These new themes are discussed in the post hoc
Results section.
Moderators of the link between customer aggression
and cognitive appraisal
Social status
Unlike more egalitarian Western countries, most Asian
countries are characterised as high power distance societies,
such that they accept that power, money and influence are
unevenly distributed. People with high social status are
perceived as more worthy and competent, and they possess
more social and economic power (Major et al., 2002; Triandis,
1995). They are inclined to see themselves as superior. People
without social status instead likely suffer poor self-esteem,
report feelings of shame and behave without resistance in
social interactions (Gruenewald et al., 2006). In Thailand, a
high power distance culture, people with low status in society
are openly referred to as “lo-so”, whereas high status people
are “hi-so”. This reflects peoples’ position in society. Hi-so
people are typically wealthy, powerful and well-educated. On
the other hand, Thai (lo-so) are destined to accept the
imbalance power favouring (hi-so) (Pimpa, 2012), especially
in commercial service encounters. This power imbalance
 Cognitive appraisals and well-being
Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha et al.
implicitly encourages hi-so customers to misbehave when
dealing with a perceived lo-so FLE. Our interviews clearly
indicated that when an aggressive customer was categorised
(by a FLE) as hi-so, the FLE felt their self-worth more
threatened and incompetent performing his/her task. To
illustrate, a bank teller (female, 29 years) was scolded by a
hi-so customer due to a service failure:
This customer was of course a hi-so person. I noticed her possessions: a
Louis Vuitton bag, diamond ring, branded shoes [. . .] She had more power.
I could not avoid her. I was not sure that I could solve this problem [. . .] It
seemed like I was her employee and I felt unimportant. I prepared myself for
the fact that if I made a mistake with her, I would be faced with a problem.
This hi-so–lo-so perspective also may dominate customer
contact employees’ considerations during the service
encounter. For example, a salesperson (female, 27 years) in a
telecommunication company confirmed this consideration
when faced with a lo-so customer:
She was simple, not hi-so [. . .] If a hi-so customer was to do this to me, I
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would be courteous more than this. If hi-so people have problems, they will
complain to headquarters. They have power [. . .] If we face a complaining
hi-so customer, we cannot do anything.
Besides the hi-so perspective, the findings also illustrate the
impact of aggressive behaviour by a low status or lo-so
customer on FLEs. For example, a cashier in retail store
(female, 30 years) described her mood:
I don’t think she was hi-so [. . .] [. . .] She yelled at me and made a
complaint to the company [. . .] She did not listen to me. I felt that I was not
important [. . .] I perceived that she was in low society. She wore a simple
dress (again implying customer was lo-so) [. . .] After it ended, I felt a bit
better about myself.
The above quotes suggest the nature of the association
between customer aggression and the consequences of such
behaviours depend on whether FLEs perceive the
misbehaving customer as hi-so or lo-so. Thus, collectively, our
findings support P3a.
Moderators of the link between cognitive appraisal
and psychological well-being
The customer is always right philosophy
Many companies in south-east Asia, seek to retain customers
by acquiescing to their every need and demand even when
those demands are unreasonable, assuming they are always
right, implying that employees must passively accept
unreasonable customer demands and even aggression during
the service encounter (Bishop et al., 2005; Gettman and
Gelfand, 2007). Employees are expected to suppress their true
feelings, which leave them feeling powerless in the face of
demands and aggression. It is a “Customer is King” mentality,
which, in most developed economies, was abandoned by the
majority of companies a decade ago. This policy approach
conveys an unequal power balance between FLEs and the
customer (Karatepe et al., 2009) and limits FLEs from
responding in their preferred ways (Bishop and Hoel, 2008;
Hughes and Tadic, 1998). To illustrate, a 30-year-old female
supermarket employee believed she had to accept the
organisation’s policy and could not express her genuine
emotions during a negative incident. This situation depleted
her emotional resources and exacerbated her feelings of stress:
I got my training from the company where I am an employee. I was taught
that I have to do anything that makes the customer feel satisfied. During this
incident, my face was sullen. Although I was very angry I had to keep it in
my mind [. . .] I was under the impression that I should not have any
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problems with this customer if I followed the company’s policy [. . .] Yes,
customer is the king. But my face was feeling hot and it made me unhappy
at work for the whole day. I lost my confidence.
In some companies in Thailand, FLEs are well indoctrinated
with this philosophy and so succumb to customer wishes, even
while being abused. Following an incident in which a retail
employee (female, 26 years) was sworn at and physically
intimidated, she stated:
When we have a meeting, my boss always says that the customer is always
right. Even when customers behave badly to us, we have to put a smile on
our faces. We cannot be moody. If the company knew that we were
(unhappy), we would be fired, as it means we don’t respect our customers.
Customers are the ones who keep us in a job. If we don’t please the
customers, then they won’t come and get service from us.
Some FLEs, however, are not infused with a “customer is
always right” philosophy. As an employee (female, 26) on the
front line of a communication company described:
I don’t agree with customer is always right policy [. . .] This customer did
not complete the service cancellation. She came here and shouted at me. I
explained to her, but she still made an outcry. She didn’t respect me. I
printed out the document and let her check it [. . .] It was annoying and
boring.
Hence the impact of cognitive appraisal on FLEs well-being
will be stronger or weaker depending on the extent of FLEs
adhering to a “customer is always right” philosophy. Thus,
these examples all provide support for P3b.
Post hoc results
Although not hypothesised, our interviews revealed two
additional contingency factors: the context, whether public or
private, which moderates the relationship between customer
aggression and cognitive appraisal, and the level of social
support which weakens the linkage between cognitive appraisal
and psychological well-being.
Public or private context
A characteristic of FLEs’ work is that their behaviour (and that
of customers) is often in full view of other employees and
customers. Thus, in some situations, FLEs are threatened or
abused by aggressive customers in front of others – employees
and/or customers. The degree of the public exposure can
produce varying effects of embarrassment and a serious loss of
face for employees (Grace, 2007). That is a public context
strengthens the association between customer aggression and
the cognitive appraisal. For incidents that occur in public,
FLEs experienced more embarrassment, which exacerbated
the impact of customer aggression on cognitive appraisal
(threats). A receptionist (female, 38 years) in a hospital
described how she felt due to mistreatment by a customer in
the presence of other customers:
He yelled at me, scolded me with rude words. It was very loud [. . .] I was
very embarrassed because everyone around was looking at me. I saw some
customers laugh, it seemed like they were watching the circus. This made
me feel very bad (threat to self esteem, loss of face).
Another FLE (female, 27 years) in a communication company
was serving a customer enquiring about an iPad. When the
customer suddenly began yelling at her:
She bellowed at me in spite of her misunderstanding. I did not know why
she swore at me like this. Everyone in the shop looked at me. She
demonstrated her power [. . .] I felt that I was losing self-respect so much
(threat to self esteem).
 Cognitive appraisals and well-being
Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha et al.
However when the incident happened in private, FLEs
cognitive appraisal is less (negative) impacted. As a hospital
employee (male, 39) in a private hospital reported:
A foreigner was x-rayed in the last two days and he got the result on CD.
The next day, he came again and asked for the film. He was so fierce and
spoke very loudly. I could not manage this situation. I was frightened. I took
him to PACS room as outside there were many customers. I explained how
to use the CD and also the advantage of it [. . .] I felt relieved and more
confident in working as other people did not then see what happened (a
diminished threat to self-esteem and goals at work).
Social support
Social support refers to the consideration, respect or assistance
received from others, which creates a sense of being cared for,
respected, valued and part of the social group (Sarafino,
1997). Social support can be emotional (e.g. sympathy),
affirmation (e.g. supportive opinions) or simply advice.
Support from coworkers and supervisors likely have the most
influence on an employee’s well-being (Ng and Sorensen,
2008). Supportive coworkers not only help employees deal
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with abusive and aggressive customers (Wu and Hu, 2009)
but also should lead to a weaker effect of negative cognitive
appraisals on the FLEs’ psychological well-being. For
example, an FLE in a pharmacy (female, 31 years) reported
that a customer threw aspirin at her and scolded her angrily
because the price of the product had increased 3 Thai Baht
(10 cents). She was very worried about her safety. After the
incident, she was able to vent to her feelings by telling the story
to her colleagues, after which:
I was less angry and felt less stressed because I told my colleagues about the
incident [. . .] I felt better because they were able to sympathise with me and
supported me in this incident.
FLEs often need psychological support from various people
around them, including managers and colleagues but also
members of their family. One FLE (female, 25 years) reported
that she refused to allow a small child to play in a particular
play area of the shopping mall because she was concerned
about the child’s safety. The mother became angry, spoke to
her harshly and then complained in writing. The employee
perceived substantial damage to her self-esteem, leaving her
emotionally exhausted, worried and stressed. However, the
social support she received from coworkers and family helped
minimise the damage to her psychological well-being:
My boss asked what happened, so I told him the whole story. He said I did
a good job [. . .] I also told to my colleague, she asked me to forget about it
and let it be [. . .] When I went back home I told this story to my mom and
grandma. I was worried. I asked them whether I was wrong or not. They said
that I was not wrong. I did the right thing [. . .] all this made me feel a little
better.
In summary, our systematic analysis of the interview data
demonstrated that social status and public (versus private)
context can strengthen the negative impact of customer
aggression on cognitive appraisal. At the same time, the
psychological well-being of FLEs can be either aggravated or
ameliorated by the presence or absence of social support,
whereas a “customer is always right” policy can intensify the
damage to the FLE’s psychological well-being.
Discussion
From a theoretical perspective, the findings in an Eastern
collectivist culture context support the generalization of the
theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984) by
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Volume 29 · Number 4 · 2015 · 268 –279
showing how FLEs interpret customer aggression as “threats”
or violations, relevant to their well-being. This is the first
paper that uses the stress and coping theory to explain FLEs
psychological well-being in the face of customer aggression.
The analysis highlights five cognitive appraisal categories –
threats to self-esteem, physical well-being, work goals, fairness
perceptions and control – that negatively impact FLEs’
well-being when confronted with customer aggression. The
interview data reveal that following their cognitive appraisal
processes, FLEs experience negative psychological well-being,
including negative affect, anxiety, depression and stress. Thus,
the work demands associated with having to deal with
customer aggression on a regular basis is appraised by
employees as a threat to fundamental human needs
(Schneider and Bowen, 1999), harmful and evocative of some
psychological distress.
Importantly, this study also revealed a range of contingency
factors that moderate (both positively and negatively) the
impact of customer aggression on the threat appraisal and the
cognitive appraisal on FLEs’ psychological well-being. First,
when dealing with aggressive, hi-so customers, FLEs use more
cognitive resources, acquiesce to their demands to avoid
punishment by managers and feel increasingly unimportant
than when dealing with lo-so customers. Second, a public
context causes FLEs shame and embarrassment and may lead
to a loss of face and self-esteem (Triandis, 1995), which, for
Eastern cultures such as Thailand, is disastrous in terms of
personal consequences. Face refers to the positive social value
a person effectively claims for themselves and the desired
image an individual presents to others for confirmation in
social interaction. Recent research has shown that loss of face
by Asian consumers in service encounters is associated with
less forgiveness, increased motivation to retaliate and reduced
desire to maintain a damaged relationship (Hui and Bond,
2009). Third, where a “customer is always right” mantra
prevails, employees have no alternative but to follow
organisational policies and rules, suppress their true feelings
and try to appease even the most aggressive customer. This
factor inflates the self-worth of customers, resulting in the
belief that they deserve special treatment and even have the
right to mistreat employees thus exacerbating the damage to
FLEs well-being. Fourth, social support from coworkers is
essential; support from supervisors and family is a secondary
source of psychological catharsis. This finding confirms
previous studies that have indicated that social support can
modify employees’ feelings and reduce the stress resulting
from aggression (Schat and Kelloway, 2003).
Managerial implications
The findings of this study suggested that FLEs appraised
customer aggression as “threats” to one or more of their basic
psychological needs. And the cognitive appraisal of such
incidents generates a negative impact on FLEs psychological
well-being. Service organizational policies therefore need to
focus on the FLEs cognitive appraisal. It is not possible for
managers to eliminate all customer misbehaviour. However,
the occupational health psychology literature suggests that
intervention can change the employee’s appraisal of a stressful
situation (Richardson and Rothstein, 2008). Thus, to
diminish negative psychological well-being of FLEs, managers
 Cognitive appraisals and well-being
Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha et al.
should use a cognitive management intervention program.
Such programs educate FLEs on how to manage stressful
situations and respond in a way that minimises any
psychological impact. For example, FLEs are trained to
understand the role of their thoughts, the customer’s point of
view (taking the customer’s perspective). If an individual can
empathize with the other party (customer), they are more
likely to view unfair behaviour less personally (Rupp et al.,
2008). FLEs may replace negative affect with positive
thoughts. Then, FLEs can alter their thoughts and exploit
appropriate coping options.
Our study found four situational factors (i.e. “customer is
always right” philosophy, social status, public context and
social support) that can aggravate or attenuate the impact of
customer aggression on the psychological well-being of FLEs.
High power distance cultures are typically Asian developing
countries such as China, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam
(Hofstede, 1984; Triandis, 1995) where unequal wealth and
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influence freely exists today. The unequal balance of power
and influence in many service encounters supports the
organizational generated philosophy of “customer is always
right” (Yagil, 2008). The persistence of such a maxim shapes
the expectation of FLEs to satisfy customers at any cost, but at
the cost of damaging FLEs psychological well-being. Service
firms might well therefore reconsider whether such a policy
should be discontinued. Next, managers working in Asian
economies or with a global customer base need to understand
the concept of “face” (a dimension of self-esteem) is endemic
in almost all aspects of Asian life. Face is viewed as public and
depends on, amongst other factors, attitudes and behaviour of
others with whom one has interpersonal contact.
Consequently, face can be easily threatened through social
interaction (Pan, 2013) and so managers need to realize that a
concern for preserving face is pervasive in most service
transactions. This is indicative of the fact that different values
such as social status, display rules and face concept are norms
strictly adhered in Eastern cultures. In situations where an
employee is being subject to a loss of face during a service
encounter, supervisors need to quickly intervene and, if need
be continue the interaction in private away from the eyes of
other employees and customers to at least preserve some face
for the FLE.
Derived from these findings, FLEs often perform their tasks
under pressure (i.e. organizational display rules, incident
happened in public, the organization has a “customer is always
right” culture and so on) and, consequently, affects their
psychological well-being. Thus, to respond to our findings, a
number of practical implications are evident. First, in
situations where the customer is clearly wrong and starts to
become aggressive, supervisors or managers should separate
FLEs from this potentially serious situation. In other words,
organisations should consent for FLEs to terminate contact
with a customer who is misbehaving without being penalised.
Second, because the organization desires to retain (most)
customers and maintain the relationship, to alleviate critical
situations organizations should procure a team who can
intervene and communicate with deviant, abusive customers.
Generally, to preserve relationships, Asians favour an
accommodating and/or compromising strategy (Fletcher et al.,
1998). Negotiating and conversation skills would be required
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Volume 29 · Number 4 · 2015 · 268 –279
from such a supporting team. However, this strategy would be
beneficial to both parties (customer and FLE). Finally, our
findings indicate that social support should be systematically
used to FLEs to minimize their stress after an incident in
which they felt threatened and anxious. In a customer
aggression context, Schat and Kelloway (2003) suggested that
coworker support is the best strategy to attenuate the
accompanying stress. Organisations thus should look for ways
whereby social support can be developed to help fulfil
employees’ socio-emotional needs and reduce negative
consequences. For example, managers could train FLEs how
to give support to fellow employees in overcoming critical
indents when dealing with abusive customers.
Limitations and further research directions
This paper is not without its limitations. First, this study has
examined the cognitive appraisals of FLEs working in a wide
variety of service contexts (e.g. retail, hospital, hospitality,
telecommunications), so the characteristics of the service work
in each setting differ somewhat. For example, in a retail role,
FLEs are mostly passive, whereas receptionists in a
health-care service setting are more proactive and possess
greater product knowledge to satisfy clients. Further research
should consider the experience of FLEs in distinct, specific
contexts (e.g. professional services), to gain deeper
understanding and inferences for that specific industry.
Second, the study sample restricts the generalisation of our
results. Thailand is an Eastern, collectivist country whose
cultural values vary from those that predominate in Western
contexts, particularly attitudes towards service work. The
prominent imbalance of power in service transactions can
promote customer aggression (Yagil, 2008). For greater
external validity, further research should apply the methods of
this study to Western contexts. Furthermore, should a
comparative study between cultures be undertaken, then this
could prove to be a rich source of investigation.
Third, our qualitative findings, though insightful, are
subject to the limitations of qualitative research. The
robustness of our findings might be explored with a
quantitative research design that calibrates, for example, the
relative impact of each cognitive appraisal on FLEs’
psychological well-being. A quantitative design might be able
to specify the extent to which the moderating constructs affect
the association between customer aggression–appraisal and
cognitive appraisal and well-being.
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About the authors
Chuanchuen Akkawanitcha is a PhD candidate in Faculty
of Business Administration at Chiang Mai University,
Thailand. Her research interests are service management and
cross cultural management.
Paul Patterson is a Professor in the School of Marketing at
the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. His
research, teaching and consulting interests revolve around
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Journal of Services Marketing
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marketing issues in service industries. His research has been
published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
Journal of Service Management, Journal of Service Research, Journal
of Retailing, California Management Review, European Journal of
Marketing, Journal of Business Research, International Journal for
Research in Marketing, Journal of International Business Studies,
among others. Paul Patterson is the corresponding author and
can be contacted at: p.patterson@unsw.edu.au
Siriwut Buranapin is an Associate Professor and Dean of
Faculty of Business Administration at Chiang Mai
University, Thailand. His research interests are social
entrepreneurship, sustainable leadership and philosophy of
sufficiency economy.
Saranya Kantabutra, PhD, is a Lecturer of Faculty of
Business Administration at Chiang Mai University, Thailand.
Her research interests are human resource management and
wellness tourism.