Impact of employees’ self-related constructs on job satisfaction and perspective-taking intention: Customer incivility as a moderator

Using self-determination theory, this study investigated the impact of employees’ self-related constructs (i.e., self-esteem, self-efficacy, and work ethics) on their perspective-taking intention in the workplace, using customer incivility as a moderator. The partial least squares method was used to analyze data collected in a survey of 412 employees from diverse industries in Australia. Findings showed the strong impact of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and work ethics on job satisfaction and perspective-taking intention. Customer incivility was found to be a significant moderator of the relationships of self-esteem with self-efficacy and with work ethics, but not of the self-esteem—employee job satisfaction link. Thus, employees with a higher internal locus of control, when exposed to emotional turmoil as a consequence of customer incivility, were found to have a greater level of control.