How customer mistreatment influences hotel employees’ perceptions of their organization and even their careers: a moderated mediation model

Purpose Customer mistreatment is an inevitable and significant work-related stressor for the service workers. Drawing on rumination theory and the effort-recovery model, the study aims to explore how customer mistreatment affects frontline hotel employees’ organizational and career perceptions (career withdrawal cognitions and organizational affective commitment). It examines the short-term and long-term impacts and corresponding psychological mechanisms, considering the role of career resilience. Design/methodology/approach We conducted a two-wave survey with a three-month interval among 359 customer-contact staff from 11 hospitality enterprises in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, China. SPSS 26.0 and Mplus 8.0 were employed to test the research model. Findings Results indicated that customer mistreatment ultimately influences the two outcomes by sequentially increasing employees’ cognitive rumination and job burnout. In addition, our model shows that another factor, career resilience, serves as a moderator, mitigating the mediating role of rumination in the relationship between customer mistreatment and job burnout. Originality/value The study contributes to the theoretical framework by integrating cognitive theories of rumination and the effort-recovery model to explain the psychological processes underlying front-line employees’ responses to customer mistreatment. It not only deepens our understanding of the consequences of customer mistreatment but also provides practical suggestions for hotel managers to address employee retention and career development issues.