Whatever happens, I'll support you: The effects of autonomy support during aggressive customer service interactions
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: Stemming from a tradition of self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), an abundance of support exists for implementing autonomy support as a tool in fostering employee well-being and performance.In essence, autonomy supportive managers help to satisfy basic psychological needs (e.g., autonomy, competence) of their employees, but what is less clear is whether the beneficial effect of autonomy support will be seen under challenging work conditions such as dealing with customer aggression.Working with aggressive customers has been shown to decrease employee need satisfaction, leading to burnout and impaired performance.Taken together, the current study sought to examine the independent and interactive effects of managerial behavior and customer treatment toward the employee on key outcomes such as reports of well-being and performance.Through a call center simulation in which management style was experimentally manipulated (autonomy supportive or controlled), participants received calls from customers (aggressive or non-aggressive) and continuously recorded their need satisfaction and affect immediately following the customer calls; also, observer ratings of employee service performance were continuously recorded after data collection.In using continuous rating assessments, this study sought to eliminate many of the limitations traditionally found in self-report measures.Results show that the manager motivational style had significant but limited effects: participants in the autonomy supportive manager condition experienced more positive affect and vitality, on average, compared to the iv controlled manager, but the manager manipulation did not significantly influence participant reports of average negative affect, emotional exhaustion, or third-party performance ratings.The customer treatment toward the participant had strong, robust effects on average well-being as well as trends and end-of-call ratings (i.e., ratings at the concluding moment of the call) for need satisfaction and performance.However, the managerial style and the customer treatment did not significantly interact to predict employee outcomes as expected.Possible explanations for these findings as well as implications for the advancement of theory and practical use of the findings are discussed.
Author: Alison A. Benedetti
Institution: University of Akron
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2619170394