Exploring Service Sabotage

Abstract

The attitudes and behaviors of frontline, customer-contact service providers are a significant factor in customers’ perceptions and interpretations of service encounters. To date, research into service quality and customer satisfaction has overlooked evidence that suggests that such employees intentionally act in a variety of deviant, counterproductive ways. The aims of this study are first to explore, describe, and classify such behaviors and second to model the antecedents and consequences of such actions. Existing studies and field interviews are used to forward the notion of “service sabotage”, denoting organizational member behaviors that are intentionally designed negatively to affect service. Data reveal that more than 90% of all informants accept that service sabotage is an everyday occurrence in their organization. A typology of service sabotage behaviors is forwarded and a range of antecedents and consequences proposed. The article concludes with a series of implications.