Effect of Differential Customer Treatment on Employee Job Satisfaction: The Role of Perceived Guiltiness, Understanding of Distributive Justice, and Empowerment

Abstract

Many service providers treat each customer differently based on their profitability. Prior research on this phenomenon either takes management perspectives or customer perspectives. In contrast, the current research examines this effect of differential customer treatment from the perspective of employees. Specifically, this study investigates employees feeling of guilt in the process of providing differential customer treatment and how it effects employees job satisfaction. Applying the concept of distributive justice to differential customer treatment, employees preference for the principle of equity versus equality is used to predict the level of guilt they associate with during service exchange. The findings indicate that the perceived feeling of guilt regarding differential customer treatment negatively affect job satisfaction, but the presence of empowerment can significantly mitigate this adverse effect by strengthening job satisfaction.