Identifying the Relations Between Customer-Related Social Stressors on Frontline Employees’ Job Burnout, Service-Oriented Citizenship Behavior, Customer Orientation, Job Performance and Turnover Intention: An Emprical Study in Turkey

This emprical study has developed and tested a model that scrutinizes how customer-related social stressors, job burnout, service oriented citizenship behaviour, job performance, customer orientation and turnover intention are related. The context chosen for this emprical study is the Turkish tourism and hospitality industry. A total of 235 correctly filled and returned questionnaires were obtained from the front line employees working in 13 different 5-star hotels around Side region, which is one of the most preferred tourism destinations of Turkey in the Mediterranean Sea. 270 questionnaires were distributed to front line employees by the researcher. Each respondent was given a questionnaire and an envelope. Respondents were informed about the purpose of the survey and asked if they would participate in the survey. Employees were given assurance of confidentality and anonimity. They were requested to fill in the questionnaire and hand in the researcher in the envelope closed the day after. The research data was analysed by PLS (Partial Least squares) approach to path modeling in order to estimate the structural parameters. In total 24 hypothesis were tested. Although all these hypothesis proposed negative effects, 13 hypothesis were not supported, while 11 were supported. Considering the proven negative relations between Customer Related Social Stressors and Burnout dimensions; Customer Verbal Aggression and Disliked Customers’ negative relation with Emotional exhaustion was found out. Disliked Customers was also found negatively related to Depersonalization. Disproportionate Customer Expectations’ negative impact on Diminished Personal Accomplishment was also found significant. It was found out that Diminished Personal Accomplishment and Depersonalization are negatively related with Customer Orientation and Service Oriented Citizenship Behavior. A negative effect of Diminished Personal Accomplishment on Job Performance was also found. As for the Turnover Intention. It was found out that Turnover Intention is negatively affected by Service Oriented Citizenship Behavior and Job Performance. Disproportionate Customer Expectations and Ambiguous Customer Expectations’ proposed effect on Emotional Exhaustion was not proven. The results also do not point at a significant finding on Disproportionate Customer Expectations, Customer Verbal Aggression and Ambiguous Customer Expectations’ proposed effect on depersonalization. Similarly, Disliked Customers, Customer Verbal Aggression and Ambiguous Customer Expectations’ were not negatively related to Diminished Personal Accomplishment. Negative effect of Emotional Exhaustion was found to be unrelated to Customer Orientation and Service Oriented Citizenship Behavior. Two dimensions of burnout; Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization also remained unsupported regarding their effect on Job Performance. The study is completed by managerial implications and recommendations. Keywords: Customer-Related Social Stressors, Frontline Employees, Job Performance, Job Burnout, ServiceOriented Citizenship Behavior, Customer Orientation, Turnover Intention