No More the Nice Guy: Coping with Abusive Supervision through Service Sabotage Behaviours

Abstract

‘Atithi Devo Bhav’, implying that guests must be treated as Gods, is the philosophical belief of Indian society indicating the importance of treating the customers with utmost respect and courtesy. The current study examines service sabotage behaviours by utilizing time-lagged method to collect data in three waves from 332 employees from Indian hotel industry. The study highlights the effects of abusive supervision on the employees who perceive disrespect, public humiliation or rude supervisory behaviours towards them as breach of psychological contract, and they retaliate by displaying deviant workplace behaviour such as service sabotage. The unique proposition of the research is to investigate the sequential mediating role of psychological contract violation and retaliation intention on the relationship between abusive supervision and service sabotage. The research utilizes psychological contract theory and frustration–aggression theory to draw logical inferences from the findings. Findings indicate that when employees perceive mistreatment or injustice, they experience psychological contract violation that instigates an urge to retaliate against the unfair treatment by engaging in negative service behaviours, for example, sabotage. Therefore, the hospitality organizations must implement practices and processes to take care of any unjust, unfair or hostile behaviour at play in the organization, as the success of the industry is dependent on the service quality and frontline employees’ encounters with the customer. The study provides some interesting and useful managerial and theoretical implications.