When passengers misbehave: exploring the pathways from customer incivility to service sabotage among ride-hailing drivers

Purpose Grounded in conservation of resources theory, this study aims to examine the relationship between customer incivility and ride-hailing drivers’ (RHDs) service sabotage, testing emotional dissonance and ego depletion as serial mediators and emotional intelligence as a moderator. Design/methodology/approach A three-wave, time-lagged data set collected from Pakistani RHDs through snowball sampling was analyzed using PROCESS macro in SPSS to test the moderated serial mediation model. Findings The findings partially support the model, demonstrating that customer incivility significantly affects RHDs, resulting in service sabotage both directly and indirectly through the sequential mediation of emotional dissonance and ego depletion. Although emotional intelligence did not buffer the indirect effects of customer incivility, low emotional intelligence was found to intensify the customer incivility–service sabotage relationship, while high emotional intelligence neutralized this association. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to offer a comprehensive examination of the negative impacts of customer incivility on RHDs in the gig economy. By introducing a moderated serial mediation framework, it provides novel insights into the psycho-emotional-behavioral consequences of customer mistreatment, addressing critical gaps in gig-economy service research and highlighting the role of emotional intelligence in mitigating adverse outcomes.