Tom J. Brown

• Oklahoma State University

Customer-oriented frontline employees are motivated by a strong desire to help customers. While such motivation enhances customer outcomes, it can also encourage frontline employees to engage in customer-directed prosocial behaviors that undermine organizational norms. We consider such a possibility and find that: (1) in their quest to satisfy cust...

This study investigates how customer requests, a common phenomenon, influence frontline employee (FLE) job outcomes. We propose and demonstrate that (1) FLEs possess tendencies to appraise customer requests in both positive (i.e., challenge appraisal tendency) and negative (i.e., hindrance appraisal tendency) ways, (2) higher levels of challenge ap...

Advances in frontline interface technologies and devices are profoundly disrupting how organizations and customers interact to create and exchange value. Where once customer interactions were limited in variety, multiplicity, and complexity, today’s broadband Internet and wireless connection technologies defy limitations to enable organization-cust...

Researchers have been thorough in their examination of the influence of organizational factors (e.g., supervisors, climate) on employees' perceptions of justice in the workplace. However, much less effort has been directed toward understanding how factors external to the organization – namely, customers – influence perceived justice. This represent...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how customer orientation affects frontline service workers’ deep acting and to what extent the effect is moderated by the severity of dysfunctional customer behavior (DCB). Service organizations usually want their employees to demonstrate sincere emotions during customer encounters. Design/methodolog...

Due to its practical importance, the relationship between customer satisfaction and frontline employee (FLE) job satisfaction has received significant attention in the literature. Numerous studies to date confirm that the constructs are related and rely on this empirical finding to infer support for the "inside-out" effect of FLE job satisfaction o...

In this paper, we examine how organizations’ impression management (IM) evolves in response to rising stakeholder pressures regarding organizations’ corporate responsibility initiatives. We conducted a comparative case study analysis over a period of 13 years (1997–2009) for two organizations—Exxon and BP—that took extreme (but different) initial s...

Numerous studies have investigated the performance of frontline employees (FLEs) and how these employees influence organizational success. Because customer-perceived outcomes are important, much attention has been devoted to the customer orientation (CO) construct. The weak influence of CO on external measures, however, has led to numerous research...

In this paper, we examine how organizational impression management evolves in response to rising institutional pressures. Based on a comparative case study analysis of two companies – Exxon and BP - over a period of 12 years (1997- 2009), we demonstrate that impression management in the face of rising pressures unfolds in four phases: i) advocating...

We propose that specialty store managers, as well as outside sales personnel attached to the store, have selling responsibilities. In addition, we propose that sales personnel, as well as store managers, should have a propensity for leadership, which reflects an individual’s enduring disposition to exhibit leadership within the context of his or he...

Previous research has conceptualized and modeled customer orientation (CO) in one of two ways: as a psychological phenomenon antecedent to critical job states (i.e., stress and engagement) or as frontline employee behaviors that are caused by these same job states. Building on meta-analytic data, this study finds greater support for the causal rela...

This paper shows how 6 large oil companies express their identity by using 2 messaging patterns in managing legitimacy and distinctiveness. In the first pattern (aiming at legitimacy), companies focus on transparency, sincerity and consistency to build understanding and acceptance among stakeholders. In the second pattern (aimed at distinctiveness)...

This empirical study evaluated the moderating effects of unit customer orientation (CO) climate and climate strength on the relationship between service workers' level of CO and their performance of customer-oriented behaviors (COBs). In addition, the study examined whether aggregate COB performance influences unit profitability. Building on multis...

In the quest for building long-term successful brands, many marketers have become increasingly interested in how to create and foster successful communities of brand users. The appeal of such an approach to relationship marketing lies in the recognition that members of brand communities tend to exhibit favorable brand-related behaviors and intentio...

The influence of a firm’s cause-related marketing efforts on sales representative attitudes and behavioral performance is investigated. Results from a field study indicate that the influence of a representative’s construed customer attitude toward the cause campaign on selling behavioral performance is mediated through cognitive identification and...

The article introduces a new approach for assessing corporate associations, the Unique Corporate Association Valence (UCAV) measure. The UCAV integrates the quantitative and qualitative approaches with the specific intent of capturing the advantages while avoiding some of the disadvantages of either approach. The initial qualitative and quantitativ...

Many scholars across various academic disciplines are investigating the following questions: What do individuals know or believe about an organization? How does a focal organization (and/or other interested entity) develop, use, and/or change this information? and How do individuals respond to what they know or believe about an organization? Cross-...

Several scholars have noted the importance of relationship marketing and the critical role that salesperson knowledge plays in the formation of buyer-seller relationships. However, research on salesperson learning motivations has been relatively scarce compared with research on firm-level learning orientations. One promising stream of research in t...

Empirical studies investigating the antecedents of positive word of mouth (WOM) typically focus on the direct effects of consumers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction with previous purchasing experiences. The authors develop and test a more comprehensive model of the antecedents of positive. WOM (both intentions and behaviors), including consumer ide...

Implementation of the marketing concept in service firms is accomplished through individual service employees and their interactions with customers. Although prior research has established a link between service-worker customer orientation and performance outcomes, little research has addressed other potentially important outcomes of customer orien...

In a series of three studies, a four-level hierarchical model of personality was employed to identify the antecedents and three validating criteria of a newly developed trait labeledjob resourcefulness (JR). JR is defined as an enduring disposition to garner scarce resources and overcome obstacles in pursuit of job-related goals. Across three servi...

This paper captures the thoughts of an international consortium of researchers who study marketing- related phenomena related to the managerial choices and actions involved in organizational identity formation and communication, and the resulting interpretations and reactions of individual, group and societal constituents. It presents a framework f...

Prior research indicates that market orientation is associated with positive outcomes for firms. For service organizations, a market orientation is implemented largely through individual service workers. The authors investigate the mediational role of customer orientation in a hierarchical model of the influence of personality traits on self-rated...

A June 2000 study of 510 tourists examined their image of Thailand as an international travel destination and assessed the effects of the destination's image on the likelihood of the travelers' returning there. Using several statistical analyses, the study indicates that Thailand has a positive image as a rich cultural, natural, and historical trav...

Although researchers have considered how postencounter affect influences satisfaction with services, little is known about the influence of preencounter affect on consumer responses to a service encounter. In this article, the authors investigate the effects of preencounter fear and joy on service expectations and postencounter responses (i.e., aff...

`Corporate associations' — what an individual knows or feels about a particular organization — have long been thought to influence consumers' and other audiences' responses to a company and its products. Although researchers have studied corporate image and related concepts for decades, there have been few attempts to summarize the antecedents and...

The first panel session of the conference examined some of the key perspectives researchers and practitioners take when they discuss corporate reputations. Among the more common views are those of Organization Theory, Marketing, Strategic Management, and Social Responsibility. Panelist presentations were as follows:Theory Development and the Study...

Relationships with referring providers are important to specialists for more than just ensuring a supply of incoming patients. They also offer an opportunity to influence the service referral variables, which unfortunately are not under the direct control of the specialist. Target providers must try to "manage" the service referral variables whenev...

The assessment of service quality has proven to be an important consideration for managers and researchers. The dominant service quality framework posits that consumers consider both their own expectations and service provider performance when evaluating service quality. In recent years, however, debate has emerged on how this comparison process sh...

Although brand theorists suggest that what a person knows about a company (i. e., corporate associations) can influence perceptions of the company's products, little systematic research on these effects exists. The authors examine the effects of two general types of corporate associations on product responses: One focuses on the company's capabilit...

Although brand theorists suggest that what a person knows about a company (i.e., corporate associations) can influence perceptions of the company's products, little systematic research on these effects exists. The authors examine the effects of two general types of corporate associations on product responses: One focuses on the company's capabiliti...

SERVQUAL, which involves the calculation of the differences between expectations and perceptions on a number of prespecified criteria, is currently the most popular measure of service quality. However, there are some serious problems in conceptualizing service quality as a difference score; these are reviewed and empirically investigated in this pa...

This article illustrates the common use of difference scores in consumer research and discusses a number of potential problems with using them. Difference scores often have problems in the areas of reliability, discus validity, spurious correlations, and variance restriction. The article concludes that difference scores should generally not be used...

It has been suggested that increasing levels of clutter on television lead to diminished memory retrieval for advertised brands. Although earlier studies have shown that clutter decreases an individual's ability to recall a brand, it is not clear that clutter will have the same effect on other measures of memory. Two experiments with important meth...