Customer Incivility and Deviant Behavior Directed at Customers: Burnout and the Customer Orientation Paradox

Background: Customer incivility has become a pervasive stressor in hospitality. Repeated exposure to rude or disrespectful customer behaviors depletes emotional resources, increasing burnout and deviant behavior directed at customers. However, the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions remain unclear. Objective: Drawing on conservation of resources theory and the customer orientation paradox, this study examines whether burnout mediates the relationship between customer incivility and deviant behavior directed at customers and whether customer orientation moderates this mediation. Design and Methodology: Using a cross-sectional survey design and purposive quota sampling, data were collected from 548 hotel employees in medium- and large-sized hotels in a southern province of Thailand. Structural equation modeling with latent moderated mediation was employed to test hypotheses. Results: Customer incivility was positively associated with employees’ deviant behavior directed at customers through burnout (standardized indirect effect = .06, 95% CI [.03, .10]). Customer orientation strengthened the relationship between customer incivility and burnout (standardized interaction effect = .10, 95% CI [.02, .18]). The indirect effect via burnout was stronger among employees with high customer orientation (standardized indirect effect = .14, 95% CI [.03, .26]) but nonsignificant among those with low customer orientation (standardized indirect effect = .01, 95% CI [-.04, .07]). Conclusion and Implications: The findings highlight emotional resource depletion and cognitive dissonance as key mechanisms explaining why highly customer-oriented employees are vulnerable to customer incivility. Organizations should complement customer-oriented service values with emotion regulation training, supervisory support, and clear boundary-setting policies to protect employee well-being and prevent deviant service behaviors.