Does dysfunctional customer behavior really impact the turnover intention of hotel guest-contact employees? The role of wisdom leadership and job embeddedness

ABSTRACT The study highlights how dysfunctional customer behavior affects the hotel’s guest-contact employee turnover intention by performing the role of wisdom leadership and job embeddedness. The model was tested using data collected from 325 guest-contact employees in Omani 4 and 5-star hotels. The results suggest that dysfunctional customer behavior increases the likelihood of employee turnover. Wisdom leadership plays a mitigating role in the relationship between dysfunctional customer behavior and employee turnover. Female respondents supported the notion that employees’ cognitive rumination is positively related to employee turnover intention and that customer dysfunctional behavior has a positive relationship with employee turnover. Emotional exhaustion partially mediates the relationship between dysfunctional customer behavior and employee turnover. However, cognitive rumination and employee stress do not mediate the relationship between dysfunctional customer behavior and employee turnover. On the other hand, males showed better support on the basis that wisdom leadership moderates the association between dysfunctional customer behavior and employee turnover. The paper concludes by contributing various implications and directions for future research.