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Drawing on the customer participation (CP) literature, this research proposes that CP variation is the degree to which employees perceive variability across customers with regard to customers sharing information, time, and effort and making suggestions to enhance the service delivery process and outcome. Drawing on the job demands–resources model, this research explicates the mediating process by which CP variation affects customer service performance and its boundary conditions. Study 1 uses data from a field study in the banking industry to show that CP variation negatively influences customer service performance through greater customer-related burnout. The authors show that this mediation process is moderated by contingencies that mitigate or exacerbate the indirect relationship. Study 2 further validates the CP variation construct by testing for discriminant validity against similar and related constructs, such as CP quality, in more diverse service industries (insurance, legal consulting, travel and tourism, health care, and physical fitness). Finally, an examination of the moderating role of CP quality provides a more nuanced picture of the intricacies between CP variation and CP quality. This article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications for CP variation research.

This research comprises two studies that extend the literature on the proactive behavior of feedback seeking. Study 1 uses cross-sectional data from frontline employees across 51 apparel stores to examine how feedback seeking is formed and under what conditions. The results suggest that the development of feedback-seeking behavior is contingent on a feedback-seeking climate and the relationship between an employee and his or her supervisor. Study 2 uses longitudinal data collected across three time periods from multiple respondents (i.e., frontline employees and managers) not only to replicate the findings from Study 1 but also to explore when feedback seeking matters. The findings reveal that managers should target employees who are less (vs. more) satisfied with their jobs because such employees perceive more instrumental value from feedback as a means to improve customer service and sales performance. The findings from this research provide insights that managers can use to increase feedback-seeking behavior from employees and effectively identify and manage the conditions under which feedback seeking will occur to greater or lesser degrees.

This study draws on the service climate and Big Five personality literature to examine the association between a service employee's personality and perception of service climate. The authors further explore the moderating role of employee involvement climate strength on the personality trait–perceived service climate relationship based on situational strength theory. Hypotheses are tested against data collected using a multiple respondent (i.e., employees and customers) method from a national chain of 66 specialty retail stores in fashion and apparel, footwear, accessories, and sports equipment. Findings indicate that an employee who is conscientious, open to experience, and agreeable perceive the service climate to be more positive. Results also suggest that under a strong employee involvement climate, an employee who is conscientious, emotionally stable, and agreeable has a perception of service climate that is less positive. Finally, employees' perception of service climate was positively related to customers' satisfaction with decision to visit the store. Findings have practical implications for hiring and promoting employees with certain personalities that are more conducive to forming a positive perception of service climate. Further, results suggest that when retail stores have a weak employee involvement climate, stores benefit from possessing employees that are conscientious, emotionally stable, and agreeable.

We search for "missing links" in how the different social exchange relationships employees have with supervisors (i.e., leader-member exchange [LMX] differentiation) affect their unit service climate perceptions. Drawing on a social comparison perspective, we propose a model in which the different relationships service employees establish with supervisors negatively impact unit service climate through elevated unit relationship conflict. We further suggest that unit relationship conflict plays a mediating role as customer variability increases. Using data from head nurse-nurse relationships in 56 units of two major hospitals, our findings support the proposed linkages as well as reveal that employee perceptions of customer variability strengthen the troublesome positive link between LMX differentiation and unit relationship conflict. The results also indicate that unit relationship conflict mediates the relationship between LMX differentiation and unit service climate when customer variability is high but not low. Our results paint a more nuanced picture of the missing link in the leadership-climate interface by studying the dark side of leadership, a perspective that has yet to receive much scholarly attention. Findings reveal that managers who desire to keep relationship conflict in check need to keep LMX differentiation to a minimum, especially when customer variability is high compared to low.

Broadening the conceptual boundaries of marketing in the late 1960s led to a significant paradigm shift. Social marketing emerged under the auspices of this extended concept. It is not surprising, therefore, that social marketers have tended to apply conventional marketing tools, albeit within a vastly different context. Thisarticle argues that social marketers, operating in an environment that is characterized by amplified market failure brought about by externalities, may be ill-equipped to foster change utilizing conventional marketing tools. The article proposes that social capital is a useful and appropriate theory to supplement traditional notions ofmarketing to further enhance the field of social marketing.