1 RELATIONAL IDENTIFICATION: DOES IT INFLUENCE CUSTOMER
FRIENDLINESS AND UNFRIENDLINESS?
Master Thesis Human Resource Management
University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
August, 2012 MARLOES DE BOER Studentnumber: S1894404 Anjeliersstraat 88-1 1015 NJ Amsterdam Tel: +31(0)622219415 E-mail: M.de.boer.29@student.rug.nl
3 ABSTRACT
In this paper, I test if relational identification has influence on customer friendliness and customer unfriendliness, and whether this is mediated by regulatory focus. Previous research on relational identification showed that it has influence on motivation and performance of employees. The present paper extends these findings into a different motivational domain (regulatory focus) and differently valenced (extra-role) behaviors (customer friendliness and customer unfriendliness), thus contributing to existing literature. I hypothesized that the more an employee relationally identifies with a customer, the more a promotion focus will be induced, leading to an increase in customer friendly behavior. A lack of relational identification, on the other hand, was hypothesized to induce a prevention focus which will result in customer unfriendliness. To test the hypotheses, data was used gathered from a Dutch HR company (N=261). The outcomes revealed that there is no link between relational identification and customer friendliness and unfriendliness. Regulatory focus showed not to be a mediator in this study. Additional research showed that regulatory focus is also not a moderator in this relationship. Further research on customer friendliness and unfriendliness is needed to get more insights on this topic.
4 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ... 6 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 8 2.1 Relational identification ... 8 2.2 Regulatory Focus ... 9
2.3 Relational identification and regulatory focus ... 10
2.3.1 Relational identification and promotion focus ... 10
2.3.2 Relational identification and prevention focus ... 11
2.4 Employee behavior: customer friendliness and customer unfriendliness ... 13
2.4.1 Regulatory focus and customer friendliness and unfriendliness ... 14
2.4.2 Relational identification, regulatory focus and customer friendliness and unfriendliness ... 15
2.5 Conceptual model ... 17
3. METHODS ... 18
3.1 Sample and procedure ... 18
3.2 Measurements ... 18
Relational identification. ... 18
Regulatory focus ... 19
Customer friendliness and customer unfriendliness ... 19
Control variables. ... 20
5 4. RESULTS ... 21 4.1 Descriptive statistics ... 21 4.2 Hypotheses testing ... 21 4.3 Additional analysis ... 23 5. DISCUSSION ... 25
5.1 Findings direct effects ... 25
5.1.1 Theoretical implications on direct effects... 27
5.2 Findings indirect effects ... 27
5.2.2 Theoretical implication on indirect effects ... 28
5.3 Practical implications ... 29 5.4 Limitations ... 29 5.5 Future research ... 30 5.6 Conclusion ... 31 6. REFERENCES ... 33 7. TABLES ... 42 8. APPENDICES ... 47
8.1. Appendix A: Survey for employees. ... 47
6 1. INTRODUCTION
As the threat of the economic crisis has become part of everyday organizational life, the degree of customer friendliness has become increasingly important since the customer is the paying party of the organization. Customer friendliness is essential in any organization if it is to survive (Chen, 2008). When the employees in an organization are unfriendly towards their customers, they will buy their products and services elsewhere, causing the organization to lose turnover. Although the manner in which employees treat customers is extremely important to organizations, to my knowledge, surprisingly little research has been conducted on the topic.
Research on identification (e.g., van Knippenberg, 2000; Taijfel, 1982; Taijfel & Turner, 1985) and motivation (e.g. van Knippenberg, 2000) has shown that when individuals identify themselves with an entity, they are more motivated and committed to perform well for that entity. This suggests that employees whom relationally identify (Ellemers, Kortekaas & Ouwerkerk, 1999) with customers may be more motivated to treat them well. Previous research hints at the existence of this positive link between identification and work motivation (van Knippenberg, 2000). The opposite may also hold, in that employees whom do not identify with customers may be more motivated not to treat them well. This reasoning is in line with regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997).
7 security, and may thus opt for a prevention focus. Consequentially, employees may treat customers decisively different in terms of friendly and unfriendly behavior. It is this line of reasoning that I theoretically argue for, and empirically assess, in this thesis.
8 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Relational identification
In order to define relational identification, I first turn to social identification theory. Social identification is the extent to which individuals define themselves in terms of another individual, relationship, or group (Pratt, 1998). Social identity theory states that individuals classify themselves and others into various social groups. They make these classifications based on certain characteristics such as, for example gender, age, religion or level of education (Taijfel & Turner, 1985). According to Ashforth and Mael (1989), this classification has two functions: it orders and segments the social-environment by systematically defining others, and makes it possible for an individual to physically or mentally place himself in that social environment.
Although the term classification suggests that social identity theory is about groups, Ashforth and Mael (1989) states that identification with a group is similar to identification with an individual. Relational identification, then, is about identification on a dyadic level, and thus focuses on the degree of identification of one individual with another. In this manner it is about relational identification: the identification within the relationship between the employee and the customer, and the degree to which one is committed to this relationship (Ellemers, Kortekaas & Ouwerkerk, 1999).
An important aspect of relational identification is social comparison. Within relational identification, an individual compares himself with another to see whether there are striking similarities or differences. Social comparison theory assumes that individuals have a drive to get reliable self-evaluations. By comparing themselves with others, they evaluate their own abilities and beliefs in order to reduce their insecurity and understand how to define themselves (Festinger, 1954).
9 an individual (Cooper and Tatcher, 2010; Ellemers et al., 1999). Research has shown that relational identification can, for example, lead to stereotyping which can lead to negative behavior such as discrimination. Individuals may denigrate others who they cannot identify with (Leach, Spears, Branscombe & Doosje, 2003). For instance, individuals who have enjoyed a higher form of education (e.g., university) may think that individuals who have enjoyed a lower form of education (e.g. vocational school) are foolish or stupid. Relational identification can also influence the motivation of individuals. For example in organizational contexts, identification motivates individuals to outperform co-workers that take other perspectives and have other goals compared to their own (van Knippenberg, 2000).Within the positive domain, a similar pattern occurs; individuals are more prone to show desirable behaviors such as organizational citizenship behavior and loyalty towards those they identify with (Meyer, Becker, & van Dick, 2006). This in turn will lead to greater willingness to exert effort for the bigger picture (Meyer et al., 2006). In an individual context, when an individual identifies himself with another, he feels more commitment and is more motivated to support the other (Mael, 1988).
2.2 Regulatory focus
10 nourishment, growth and development needs, and strive to attain their “ideal” selves (Dewett & Denisi, 2007). In contrast, individuals with a prevention focus are more focused on avoiding losses and mismatches, are characterized by nurturance, safety and on responsibility needs, and strive to reach their “ought” selves.
2.3 Relational identification and regulatory focus
The two regulatory foci can each be induced by different tasks, situations, and organizational contexts (Friedman & Förster, 2001; Wallace et al., 2009.). One organizational context is the customer where the employee has to work with, which can differ per organization and per task. Hekman (2007), for instance, has shown that a promotion focus is positively correlated to both organizational and professional identification. Since individuals compare themselves with others in order to get a reliable self-evaluation, it is logical to believe that employees also compare themselves with their customers in a work situation. This means within the relational identification that an employee will define himself in terms of the customer. I believe that the extent of identification induces either a promotion- or a prevention focus.
2.3.1 Relational identification and promotion focus
11 can lead to motivation is the perceived energy an individual experiences when he sees themselves as part of a bigger interest rather than a perceived identify of a separate individual (Ellemers, Spears & Doosje, 2002). Relational identification also causes a loyal feeling towards that where they identify themselves with (e.g., organization, work group, customer) (Adler & Adler, 1987). Individuals who identify themselves with someone else are more willing and motivated to put some extra effort in that relationship (Mael & Ashforth, 1989).
Next to oneness and loyalty, identification also gives a feeling of certainty to an individual. The existence of identification reduces uncertainty through the deeper meaning provided by the collectives they associate with, which creates a sense of order in the world (Hogg, 2000a, 2000b, 2003; Hogg & Mullin, 1999). If employees feel more loyalty, oneness and certainty due to the relational identification with the customer, it is likely to assume that they are willing to approach gains and matches to reach their own goals. Since previously showed that the foci of an employee can change per work situation, I assume that the existence of relational identification can be the trigger of a promotion focus. The more the identification between an employee and a customer, the more an employee is motivated to gain positive outcomes. This leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1a: Relational identification is positively related to a promotion focus. .
2.3.2 Relational identification and prevention focus
12 less oneness with the group, organization or other individual, and are less loyal. I argue that in this case, employees will have another motivation to reach their own goals. Employees are more focused on rules and responsibilities (Shah, Higgins & Friedman, 1998) and searching for security needs to avoid losses (Higgins, Roney, Crowe & Hymes, 1994). The last will most likely come due to the uncertainty that comes along with the low level of identification. If an individual does not identify with the other individual, he may elicit responses aimed at underscoring the individuals‟ personal identity (van Prooijen & van Knippenberg, 2000). If for example an employee perceives a customer to be different than himself or feels „superior‟ to the customer, the employee will not be convinced in the customer‟s abilities, and will thus classify them as a loss (which they want to avoid). When individuals fail to identify with the target they work with, they are more willing to choose the safe path to reach their own goals by following the rules and responsibilities they have. So, if the level of relational identification is low, individuals are more focused on avoiding losses. This leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1b: Relational identification is negatively related to a prevention focus.
13 work-related attitude and perceptions (e.g. Markovits, Ullrich, Van Dick & Davis, 2008; Tseng & Kang, 2008). So since the regulatory focus of an individual has influence on the work approach, it is likely to assume that the type of focus influences the degree of friendly or unfriendly behavior of an employee towards a customer.
2.4 Employee behavior: customer friendliness and customer unfriendliness
The degree of friendliness or unfriendliness depends on the behavior of the employee towards a customer, keeping in mind the end goal of the employee. The foci type of an employee will lead to different behavior and in this study I will focus on two different behavioral outcomes: a positive one and a negative one. The positive behavior is customer friendliness and the negative behavior is customer unfriendliness. Since the literature does not have a precise definition for customer friendliness nor customer unfriendliness I will formulate a definition based on the literature and a pre-research1.
I define customer friendliness along the lines of organizational citizenship behavior because both are focused on working in a positive way for an entity related to the organization. Customer friendliness is “performance that supports the social and psychological environment in which task performance takes place” (Organ, 1997: 95). Customer friendly employees will undertake spontaneous and innovative activities beyond prescribed role requirements (Cohen & Liu, 2011). They will do more for a customer than is prescribed to ensure their goal achieving.
Customer unfriendliness will be defined in terms of workplace deviance because both are focused on inter alia violating the customer. Customer unfriendliness is voluntary behavior of the employee that violates the organizational norms and in doing so, threatens the well-being of the customer (Robinson & Bennett, 1995). It refers to behavior of the employee
14 which is not conforming to the expectations of the organization (Kaplan, 1975). So, employees will not do what is expected from them in their behavior towards the customer. If an employee for example sees a customer as a waste of time or a potential loss he will not do anything for the customer he can or behaves in way that is not conform the expectations of the organization.
2.4.1 Regulatory focus and customer friendliness and unfriendliness
Promotion and prevention foci may differ in the effectiveness of job-performance, depending on whether completion of the job involves approaching desirable end-states (e.g. arranging a perfect deal for the customer) or avoiding undesirable ones (e.g. arranging an irrelevant deal for the customer) (Lanaj et al., 2012). The different foci may influence the behavior of the employee towards the customer.
Promotion focused employees attend to goals related to growth and advancement (Higgins, 1997). They are focused on gaining information and emotions related to positive outcomes and they behave towards their desired/positive outcomes (Higgins & Tykocinski, 1992, Higgins et al., 1994, Higgins, Shah & Friedman, 1997). If the positive outcome for the employee, for example, involves the arrangement of an appropriate deal, the employee is more focused on gaining this outcome and will work for that. Employees with a promotion focus are more risk-seeking (Gino & Margolis, 2011) and are constantly searching for potential gains (Neubert et al., 2008). They are willing to put energy in chances to gain and grow and this mindset leads to cooperative behavior (Neubert et al., 2008). Since I stated that customer friendliness is showing behavior towards a customer that goes beyond expectations to reach desired outcomes for themselves I suggest the following hypothesis:
15 Prevention focused employees are more sensitive for negative information and more often experience negative emotions (Higgins, 1997; Carver & White, 1994). Lanaj et al. (2012) suggest that it is likely that prevention focus individuals interpret situations or individuals in a negative manner (e.g. seeing critical feedback on performance as customer impoliteness) and react with strong negative emotions. This implies that employees with a prevention focus can be customer unfriendly when they find themselves in a negative situation (e.g. customer is dissatisfied about the service). As stated before, prevention focused employees are focused on avoiding losses. The losses are a negative outcome of their work and they can see for example a customer as a loss when they think this customer is a waste of time (e.g. the employee knows for sure he can‟t help the customer). This can cause a lack of motivation to behave towards a customer as is expected from the employee of the organization. Above stated leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2b: An employees’ prevention focus is negatively related to customer unfriendliness.
2.4.2 Relational identification, regulatory focus and customer friendliness and unfriendliness
16 behavior that is positive for all parties. This can for example come from the attitude change due to identification: identification can have the consequence that the attitude of the individual towards the other individual becomes more important (Key, 1961). Within an employee-customer relationship this implies that an employees‟ attitude towards the customer can change when he identifies himself with the customer. Customer friendliness is seen as specific behavior of the employee in this study but is of course connected to the attitude. In the section above more consequences of identification for the relation between employee and customer are already mentioned. As stated, I suggest that relational identification is positively related to a promotion focus. In other words: I suggest that employees who can identify themselves with a customer are more focused on seeking and gaining success; they have a promotion focus. In that way they are friendlier towards customers, they are motivated to cross boarders and do the unexpected for the customer.
Hypothesis 3a: Relational identification is positively related to customer friendliness, and is mediated by a promotion focus.
17 unfriendliness is characterized by behavior that shows that an employee does not everything he could do for a customer and what the employee does is not that what is labeled as friendly. Suggested is as well that prevention focused employees can also be more unfriendly towards customers because they are more focused on negative emotions and situations. Relating relational identification to a prevention focus and customer unfriendliness I suggest the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3b: Relational identification is negatively related to customer unfriendliness, and is mediated by a prevention focus.
2.5 Conceptual model
All the above stated theory and hypotheses are combined in this conceptual model.
Promotion focus Relational identification Customer friendliness Prevention focus Customer unfriendlines s H1a/+
Figure 1: conceptual model H3a/+
H2a/+
H1b/-
H3b/-
18 3. METHODS
3.1 Sample and procedure
Data was gathered from an international human resources service organization (located in 44 countries) which headquarter is located in The Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the organization employs approximately 2.700 employees, spread over locations all over the country. As most organizations, this organization is results-driven and wants to maximize profits. For this they need employees who are motivated to work hard for their customers. This research was undertaken to investigate what influences the motivation of the employees and what is the result of that motivation.
An online survey was sent out to 972 employees. A total of 261 completed responses were returned (a response rate of 27%), 77 percent of these employees were women (SD = 0.43), and the mean employee age was 31 years (SD = 5.93). 43% of the respondents was focused on administrative customers, 23% on technical customers and the others on both (SD = 0.87). These demographics are representative for the organization.
3.2 Measurements
The survey was administered in Dutch. The measurements of relational identification and regulatory focus were originally in English so these where translated. The items used in the survey can be found in Appendix A.
19 agree.
Regulatory focus. The regulatory focus of the employee was measured by an 18-item scale from Neubert, Kacmar, Carlson, Chonko, and Roberts (2007). It is the work regulatory focus scale and it contains nine items about the promotion focus (α = .72) and nine items about the prevention focus (α = .76). Example questions for promotion focus are: „I take chances at work to maximize my goals for advancement‟ and „I tend to take risks at work in order to achieve successes‟. Example questions for prevention focus are: „At work I focus my attention on completing my assigned responsibilities‟ and „I do everything I can to avoid loss at work‟. Answers were provided on a five point scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.
Customer friendliness and customer unfriendliness. Since there is no measurement for the dependent variable customer friendliness and customer unfriendliness a validation study was conducted. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 34 customers of the HR service company after they had contact with an employee. These interviews yielded insights into the behaviors which employees should display for customers to perceive them as unfriendly or friendly. A long list was made of different behaviors, separating friendliness and unfriendliness. Some almost similar behaviors where combined and a survey of 17 items of customer friendly and 12 items of customer unfriendliness was made. Answers were rated on a seven point scale ranging from „was absolutely not in the conversation‟ to „was absolutely in the conversation‟. The survey was sent to 8358 customers and a total of 346 completed responses were returned (a response rate of 4,1%). The survey can be found in Appendix B.
20 I choose the items that loaded high on their designated factor (loading > 0.50) with low cross-loadings on other factors. Six items qualified for the friendliness factor, and eight items qualified for the unfriendliness factor.
To assess customer friendliness (α=.64), six items were used. Example items are: “You are well prepared for a meeting with the customer”, and “You listen to the customer”. To asses customer unfriendliness (α=.68), eight items were used. Example items are: “You are uninterested in the customer”, and “You shows to know it better than the customer”. Both reliabilities exceed .60, and are therefore sufficiently reliable (Malhotra, 2006).
Control variables. I have included age and gender as control variables. These controls were necessary because these variables have been shown to influence the identification variable in previous research (e.g., Van Der Vegt, Van De Vliert, & Oosterhof, 2003; Tse et al., 2012).
3.3 Data Analysis
21 4. RESULTS
4.1 Descriptive statistics
Means, standard deviations, Cronbachs alphas and correlations between all study variables are reported in Table 1. The correlation table shows a significant relationship between a prevention focus and customer friendliness (r = .15, p < 0.05). The results also show a strong negative relation between customer friendliness and customer unfriendliness (r = -.50, p < 0.01). This implies that when an employee is customer friendly, the customer friendliness of that employee will decrease. This will also be the other way around, when an employee is customer unfriendly, the friendliness of that employee will decrease. The age of the employee is positively related to gender (r = .18, p < 0.01) and to customer friendliness (r = .21, p < 0.01). Age is negatively related to a promotion focus (r = -.32, p < 0.01). The gender of an employee is positive related to customer friendliness (r = .19, p < 0.01) and negatively related to promotion focus (r = -.13, p < 0.05) and customer unfriendliness (r =-.18, p < 0.01).
--- Insert Table 1 about here --- 4.2 Hypotheses testing
As shown in Table 1, hardly any significant correlations were found. The only significant correlations shown are with the control variables. These relations are tested with a regression analyses which results are shown in Table 2.
22 influence, they are included in the regression analyses. For Hypothesis 1a, the relationship between relational identification and a promotion focus, was not significant (β = .02, p > .50.). Also for Hypothesis 1b, the relationship between relational identification and prevention focus, was not significant (β = .55, p > .30). Given these results, Hypotheses 1a and 1b can be rejected.
Hypothesis 2a, the relation between a promotion focus and customer friendliness, was shown to be non-significant (β = .09, p > .18). Also Hypothesis 2b, the relation between a prevention focus and customer unfriendliness, was shown to be non-significant (β = -.03, p > .60). Given these results, Hypotheses 2a and 2b can be rejected.
--- Insert Table 2 and Table 3 about here ---
To test the mediating Hypothesis 3a, I first looked at the direct effects of relational identification (X) on customer friendliness (Y). The mediation analyses showed that there was no significant relationship (β = -.01, p > .60). The relation between relational identification (X) to customer friendliness (Y) through promotion focus (M) is shown to be slightly negative but was shown to be non-significant (indirect effect = .000; 95% bootstrapped CI: -0.006; 0.005).
23 ---
Insert Table 4 about here ---
4.3 Additional analysis
Considering that all hypotheses are rejected, I conducted additional analyses. Since regulatory focus showed not to be a mediator in the relation between relational identification and customer (un)friendliness, I investigated if there was a moderating effect (see Figure 2), which was similarly argued for by Hekman (2007).
Figure 2: additional researched models
To test the four models, regression analyses were conducted. The dependent variable in the first two models is customer friendliness and in Models 3 and 4 the dependent variable is customer unfriendliness. The independent variable is relational identification. In addition, there are two moderating variables in this regression model: promotion focus and prevention focus. To measure the moderating effects, two new variables are created, called the interaction terms. The regression model will test the direct effect of the moderators and the interaction effects. In this study, only the interaction effect will be discussed. In order to
Relational identification Promotion /prevention focus Customer friendliness Relational identification Customer unfriendliness Promotion/ prevention focus
24 compute the outcome, the simple moderation model, generated by PROCESS was used (Hayes, 2012). The outcome shows that there is no significant effect in all of the models, indicating that customer friendliness and customer unfriendliness are not at all influenced by the researched interactions. Since the additional analysis did not show new insights, the results will not be further discussed. All results are shown in Table 5.
25 5. DISCUSSION
Since customer friendliness is becoming more important in times like this where the crisis has become part of everyday life, this research was set up to provide more insight in this topic. This research has given answer to the question if relational identification is positively related to customer friendliness and negatively to customer unfriendliness, mediated by regulatory focus.
5.1 Findings direct effects
The results show that all stated hypotheses on the direct effects are not significant. This is a remarkable outcome since literature does suggest a positive link between identification and motivation (e.g. van Knippenberg, 2000). Identification can lead to counterproductive performance when the employee has created counter-productive norms with the individual he works with (such as in work groups) (van Knippenberg, 2000) however, within a relationship between employee and customer this remains unlikely.
26 between promotion focus and identification but not with this specific type of identification. The correlation between prevention focus and customer friendliness is shown to be positive but a more sophisticated regression analysis did not support this relation. The stated hypothesis expected a negative relationship, however this was also not supported. Prevention focused employees are likely to act cautiously and avoid behavior that threatens job security; they regulate needs for security and nurturance (Lanaj et al. 2010). Since customer unfriendliness is not a normative action of the organization, it may be less likely that prevention focused employees will show this behavior (e.g., Neubert et al., 2008). Prevention focused employees act in a manner that is in line with the policies and expectations and avoids negative outcomes (Higgins et al., 1994). So from this sight a positive relation between prevention focus and customer friendliness could be likely and was shown in the correlations but not in the regression.
27 5.1.1 Theoretical implications on direct effects
The first two theoretical implications are about the studied relational identification. First, employees will for instance identify themselves with the organization they work for because it gives them more job satisfaction (Dutton, Dukerich, and Harquail, 1994) or it gives an answer to, Who am I? (Ashforth and Mael, 1989). In the studied organization, the employees see many customers a day and it is likely that the employees do not have to/want to identify with all those customers. It is likely that employees do not see the need for identification with the customers, since they do not stay for a long time. Studies on temporary workers confirm this assumption in a lack of performance because they do not stay long so do not have the motivation to perform the best they can (Slattery, Selvarajan, Anderson & Sardessai, 2010). Second, the relation between employee and customer can be seen as a power difference. Fiske (1993) showed that people pay attention to those who have power since they have control on their outcomes. As we see the employee here as the one with power, it may be possible that the customer does want to identify with the employee but not the other way around.
Another theoretical implication is the lack of support for the relation between regulatory focus and customer friendliness and unfriendliness. Theoretically this could be explained by the reason that the measured behavior is not an advantage for the employees themselves, i.e., it does not appeal to the pleasure approaching and pain avoiding nature of the two regulatory foci (Higgins, 1997). In this matter, I can conclude that regulatory focus does not influence customer oriented behavior which gives the employees no advantage.
5.2 Findings indirect effects
28 positive relation between relational identification and customer friendliness, mediated by a promotion focus. Within this research by the promotion focus I focused on the employee who wants to reach positive outcomes for his own sake. Previous research showed that identification may lead to an experience of the employee to feel the customer interest as self-interest (van Leeuwen & van Knippenberg, 1999). This may suggest that identification could lead to customer friendliness with the point of view that the promotion focus of the employee is directed on reaching desired outcomes for the customer. Research on identification with an organization showed when that is salient, employees will act on behalf of the organization resulting in a variety of positive outcomes for the organization (Celsi and Gilly 2010; Dukerich, Golden, and Shortell 2002; Olkkonen and Lipponen 2006; Van Knippenberg and Van Schie 2000). I showed that this is not the case on a customer level.
Hypothesis 3b expected a negative relation between relational identification and customer unfriendliness, mediated by a prevention focus. Research showed that identification has influence on performance when identification is salient (van Knippenberg, 2000). This may suggest that identification has no influence when it is not strong presented within the relation between customer and employee. The mediator in this hypothesis, prevention focus, was also focused on avoiding losses for the employee himself. It could have given different results when it was focused on avoiding negative outcomes for the customer, which could be a topic for future research.
5.2.1. Theoretical implications on indirect effects
29 day and they will all differ. This also can cause the lack of induction of a regulatory focus.
5.3 Practical implications
Nowadays, in times of crisis, any profit that can be made is important for a company. Since the customer is the paying party for an organization it is important to know what can increase the turnover. I expect that when a customer feels threated friendly, he will buy more products or will come back; at least, it will in the end be positive for turnover. Relational identification has shown to be of no influence on customer friendliness or customer unfriendliness. For organization this means that they do not have to take into account that they hire employees who are a reflection of the customers. Another practical implication in this context is the outcome that the regulatory focus of an employee does not have influence of the customer friendliness or unfriendliness.
The last practical implication is the used measurement scale for regulatory focus of Neubert et al. (2007). This is a work regulatory focus scale which is focused on regulatory focus in a general work context and not specific customer oriented. It can be not specific enough to measure the regulatory focus of employee in a customer oriented situation.
5.4 Research limitations
Like every research, this study has some limitations that have to be acknowledged in order to interpret the results correctly.
30 rated themselves higher on this questions. Despite the given assurances of anonymity and confidentiality, it is better to assess this behaviour by a combination of self-rating, a direct colleagues rating and that of the manager. A 360-degree measurement can therefore be a better option to get a more balanced insight in the real behaviours of the employees. A second limitation of the study is that the data were gathered from employees at one particular company in one particular country. These factors limit the generalizability of the study because it could be that the results are specific for this type of organization. Future research should avoid this limitation by testing the theory with employees from different organizational backgrounds and also from different cultural backgrounds. It is imaginable that in other types of organizations (e.g. from another industry, a different scale or another culture) relational identification has influence on the customer friendliness and unfriendliness. A third limitation is the usage of the Regulatory Focus at Work scale of Neubert et al. (2007), which is, as said before, not customer oriented. The scale may have been too broad to measure the regulatory focus in this context. Future research should conduct a regulatory focus scale which is specific oriented on working with customers and gaining results or avoiding losses for their own sake (within the context, working with customers). The last limitation is the score on relational identification. The employees all rated an average identification with the customers which is not specific enough to measure relations. This can be due to the earlier stated reasons as short contact, many different customers or no need for identification.
5.5 Future research
31 interaction between identification, motivation and customer friendliness and unfriendliness. However, these relations were not found in this research. Since this was the first research about customer friendliness and unfriendliness, further extensive research is needed to get more insights on this topic.
Earlier research showed that identification is related to work motivation and it showed that it was mostly about work motivation to reach goals for the bigger interest. This study was focused on reaching gains or avoiding losses for the employees‟ own sake. Future research may investigate if the focus of an employee has influence on the relation between identification and friendliness or unfriendliness when they focus on the outcomes of the customer.
Additional research in this study showed that regulatory focus was also as a moderator not of influence on the relationship between relational identification and customer friendliness and customer unfriendliness. Since this was a an additional research in a bigger study, further research can specific focus on this relationship and do more extended research. As mentioned above, I have studied the general regulatory focus at work. Future research can measure more specific customer oriented regulatory focus to measure it more explicit. Even tough, the investigated contact between customer and employee where very short interactions (and very different), this may be not enough to induce a regulatory focus. Future research should be looking at longer contact with the same employee to give this more body.
5.6 Conclusion
Under the press of current economic crisis, the importance of customer friendliness is raised. Contact between employees and customers is quick and has to be of quality in order to save money in one way yet increase the turnover in the other way.
32 unfriendliness, mediated by regulatory focus, was investigated. The definition of customer friendliness and unfriendliness was set up by 34 personal interviews, a web-based questionnaire (N=343) and a factor analyses. Through web-based questionnaires (N=261) data was collected for the analyses of the stated hypotheses. Bootstrapping was used to analyze the mediating effect of regulatory focus on the relation between relational identification and customer friendliness and unfriendliness.
In conclusion, the quantitative results show that neither is customer friendliness nor customer unfriendliness is influenced by relational identification with the mediating effect of regulatory focus. Additional research showed that regulatory focus is also not a moderator in this relationship.
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42 7. TABLES
TABLE 1
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations
43 TABLE 2
Regression output: control variables
Relational identification Promotion Focus Prevention Focus Customer Friendliness Customer Unfriendliness β t p β t p β t p β t p β t p
44 TABLE 3
Regression output: direct effect variables and control variables
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
45 TABLE 4
Bootstrap analysis and statistical significance of indirect effects
Indirect effects 95% CI for mean indirect effect
46 TABLE 5
Regression Analysis with interaction effect of relational identification and regulatory focus
Model 1 & 2 Model 3&4
Customer friendliness Customer unfriendliness
b p R² b p R²
1. Relational identification .10 .65 .31 .19
Promotion focus .07 .62 .28 .08
Relational identification*promotion focus -.03 .60 .00 -.08 .20 .00
2. Relational identification -.22 .25 .15 .52
Prevention focus -.03 .82 .06 .69
47
8. APPENDICES
8.1. Appendix A: Survey for employees.
The survey is taken in Dutch. Geslacht: Man / vrouw
Leeftijd: ________________________
Met welke doelgroep werk je? Administratie/Industrie/Beide
Geef in de volgende stellingen aan in hoeverre je ermee eens bent: 1= Volledig mee oneens
2= Mee oneens 3= Neutraal 4= Mee eens
5= Volledig mee eens
De eerste 7 stellingen gaan over identificatie tussen jou en de kandidaat. De overige stellingen zijn gericht op motivatie.
1. Ik identificeer me met mijn kandidaten 1 2 3 4 5 2. Ik ben hetzelfde als mijn kandidaten 1 2 3 4 5 3. Mijn kandidaten zijn een refelctie van hoe ik ben. 1 2 3 4 5 4. Ik kan mezelf in de situatie van mijn kandidaten verplaatsen om te
begrijpen wat hun belangen en interesses zijn.
1 2 3 4 5
5. Als iemand positief is over één van mijn kandidaten voelt dat als een compliment voor mezelf.
48 6. Als iemand negatief is over één van mijn kandidaten voelt dat als
een persoonlijke beleiding.
1 2 3 4 5
7. De successen van mijn kandidaten voelen ook als mijn successen 1 2 3 4 5 8. Ik neem risico‟s op het werk om het behalen van mijn doelen te
maximaliseren
1 2 3 4 5
9. Op het werk neem ik risico‟s om successen te behalen. 1 2 3 4 5 10. Als ik de mogelijkheid had om mee te werken aan project met hoge
risico‟s en hoge beloningen, dan zou ik dat zeker doen.
1 2 3 4 5
11. Als ik in mijn werk niet vooruit kan gaan, ga ik op zoek naar een nieuwe baan.
1 2 3 4 5
12. De mogelijkheden om te groeien is een belangrijke factor voor mij als ik werk zoek.
1 2 3 4 5
13. Ik focus me op het afmaken van mijn taken die mijn vooruitging stimuleren.
1 2 3 4 5
14. Ik spendeer een groot deel van mijn tijd om te bedenken hoe ik mijn ambitie ga bereiken.
1 2 3 4 5
15. De prioriteiten op mijn werk zijn een duidelijk plaatje van wie ik wil zijn.
1 2 3 4 5
16. Op het werk ben ik gemotiveerd door mijn dromen en ambities. 1 2 3 4 5 17. Op het werk ben ik geconcetreerd op het goed volbrengen van mijn
taken om mijn zekerheid te verhogen.
1 2 3 4 5
18. Op het werk ben ik vaak gefocust op het afmaken van mijn taken die mij zekerheid geven.
1 2 3 4 5
19. Zekerheid is een belangrijke factor voor mij bij het zoeken van een baan.
49 20. Op het werk streef ik er naar alle verantwoordelijkheden en taken,
die me zijn opgedragen door anderen, uit te voeren.
1 2 3 4 5
21. Het voltooien van mijn taken is erg belangrijk voor mij. 1 2 3 4 5 22. Op het werk concentreer ik me op het afhandelen van de aan mij
opgedragen taken.
1 2 3 4 5
23. Ik doe alles wat ik kan om verlies/slechte uitkomst te voorkomen. 1 2 3 4 5 24. Op het werk ben ik gefocust op het voorkomen van het maken van
fouten.
1 2 3 4 5
25. Ik ben erg voorzichting om te voorkomen dat ik mogelijk fouten ga maken op het werk.
50 Hieronder volgen stellingen over vertoond gedrag tijdens contact met kandidaten. Geef aan in welke mate je volgend gedrag vertoont:
1= Nooit 2= Bijna nooit 3= Soms 4 = Meestal 5 = Altijd
1. Je stelt je eigen mening boven die van de kandidaat 1 2 3 4 5
2. Je bent onsympathiek 1 2 3 4 5
3. Je bent ongeduddig/geïrriteerd 1 2 3 4 5
4. Je bent ongeïnteresseerd in de kandidaat 1 2 3 4 5 5. Je luistert niet naar wat de kandidaat zegt 1 2 3 4 5 6. Je laat merken dat je het beter te weten dan de kandidaat. 1 2 3 4 5 7. Je negeert de wensen en suggesties van de kandidaat 1 2 3 4 5
8. Je kijkt nors/boos 1 2 3 4 5
9. Je luistert naar wat de kandidaat zegt. 1 2 3 4 5
10. Je denkt mee met de kandidaat 1 2 3 4 5
11. Je bent goed voorbereid 1 2 3 4 5
51
8.2. Appendix B: Survey for customers
This survey is again taken in Dutch.
Geslacht: Man / vrouw
Leeftijd: ________________________ Had je een afspraak met de intercedent? Ja/nee
Hoogst afgeronde opleiding __________________________
Nu volgen er stellingen over het gedrag van de intercedent voorafgaand en gedurende het gesprek dat je hebt gehad op één van onze verstigingen. Het gaat heirbij om een face to face gesprek. Jij bent de kandidaat van Randstad dus in onderstaande stellingen gaat het erom of jij dit gedrag hebtwaar waargenomen gedurende je contact met de intercedent. Mocht iets niet van toepassing zijn, vul dan neutraal in.
1=Kwam totaal niet voor in het gesprek 2= Kwam niet voor in het gesprek
3= Kwam vrijwel niet voor in het gesprek 4= Neutraal
5= Kwam enigzins voor in het gesprek 6= Kwam voor in het gesprek
7= Kwam veel voor in het gesprek
Voorafgaand aan het gesprek: De inetcedent..
1. staat op 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
52 Tijdens het gesprek:
De intercedent..
1. stelt open vragen 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2. komt goed voorbereid over 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. is duidelijk in zijn/haar communicatie 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 4. neemt de moeite om onduidelijke punten te verelderen 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5. glimlacht 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6. gedraagt zich geïnteresseerd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7. lijkt te luisteren naar wat je zegt 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. gaat in op je wensen en suggesties 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
9. gaat in op je vragen. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
10. vraagt om bevestiging alvorens actie te ondernemen 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 11. draagt oplossingen aan voor een probleem 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 12. geeft je meer advies dan noodzakelijk is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
13. gedraagt zich ongeïnteresseerd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
14. lijkt niet te luisteren naar wat je zegt 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
15. negeert je wensen en suggesties 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
