Busy stores and demanding customers: how do they affect the display of positive emotion?

Article Abstract:

This study replicates and extends our prior research on expressed emotions. We propose that the levels of a store's busyness and customer demand influence the emotions service employees express during transactions with customers. The busyness surrounding a transaction and the level of demand the transaction places on an employee are cues that provoke inner feelings and provide information about which emotions the employee can best use to gain control over the transaction. We tested three hypotheses reflecting this conceptual perspective using structured observations of 194 transactions between cashiers and customers in five supermarkets. Findings support the hypotheses that busyness is negatively related to cashiers' displayed positive emotion and that customer demand is positively related to displayed positive emotion. Findings do not support the hypothesis that the positive relationship between demand and positive emotion is weaker in busy stores than in slow stores. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Services, Retail stores, Customer service, Customer relations, Stores, Emotions

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Untangling the relationship between displayed emotions and organizational sales: the case of convenience stores

Article Abstract:

It has been proposed that the emotions expressed by role occupants influence the behavior of others. We hypothesized a positive relationship between employees' display of pleasant emotions to customers and sales in retail stores and tested that relationship in a sample of 576 convenience stores. An unexpected negative relationship was observed. A subsequent qualitative study suggested that sales is an indicator oa a store's pace, or the amount of time pressure on clerks and customers, and that pace leads to displayed emotions, with norms in busy settings supporting neutral displays and norms in slow settings supporting positive displays. Reanalysis of the quantitative data confirmed that clerks in rapidly paced stores with high sales and long lines were less likely to display positive feelings than clerks in slow-paced stores. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Retail industry, Retail trade, Convenience stores

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Characteristics of work stations as potential occupational stressors

Article Abstract:

A field study of 109 clerical workers explored work stations' characteristics as potential occupational stressors. Contrary to predictions, intrusions from atmospheric conditions and intrusions from other employees were not consistently related to negative reactions. As predicted, however, the evidence suggested that intrusions were more strongly associated with reactions to employees' work stations than with general reactions to their work. Results also indicated that employees reporting high role overload had relatively fewer negative reactions to hotness and density. The findings provide modest support for the detachment hypothesis, which predicts that overworked employees concentrate harder on their work than other employees and ignore intrusions stemming from their physical environment. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Testing, Physiological aspects, Stress (Physiology), Workstations (Computers), Office layout

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