Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T04:51:14.919Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Wait! What About Customer-Based Subtle Discrimination?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2017

Juan M. Madera ,
Lindsey Lee  and
Camille E. Kapoor
Juan M. Madera*
Affiliation:
Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, University of Houston
Lindsey Lee
Affiliation:
Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, University of Houston
Camille E. Kapoor
Affiliation:
Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, University of Houston
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Juan M. Madera, Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, University of Houston, 229 C. N. Hilton Hotel and College, Houston, TX 77204-3028. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the focal article, Jones, Arena, Nittrouer, Alonso, and Lindsey (2017) provide a review and a conceptual framework for examining subtle discrimination in the workplace. The focal article, however, mainly focuses on subtle discrimination that occurs among coworkers and only mentions customers once. The current commentary delves deeper into this notion and extends their framework by focusing on customer-based subtle discrimination. We mainly focus on research from the service industry, in part because the service industry is the largest industry in the United States, employing more than half of all employees in the United States (Lopez, 2010), and because the service industry involves frequent customer interactions. Whether it is a server in a restaurant, a front-desk clerk at a hotel, a flight attendant on a plane, or an attendant in a retail store, stigmatized service employees often face subtle discrimination. Consistent with the focal article, we argue that the subtle discrimination faced by service employees can be both interpersonal (e.g., rudeness directed toward a stigmatized service employee) and formal (e.g., a lower tip for a stigmatized service employee). The purpose of this commentary is to highlight the research on subtle discrimination by customers, focusing on a discussion of the reasons why stigmatized service employees are particularly vulnerable to subtle discrimination from customers during service encounters.

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 107 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Biernat, M., Collins, E. C., Katzarska-Miller, I., & Thompson, E. R. (2009). Race-based shifting standards and racial discrimination. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 16–28.Google Scholar
Brewster, Z. W., & Lynn, M. (2014). Black–White earnings gap among restaurant servers: A replication, extension, and exploration of consumer racial discrimination in tipping. Sociological Inquiry, 84 (4), 545–569.Google Scholar
Crandall, C. S., & Eshleman, A. (2003). A justification-suppression model of the expression and experience of prejudice. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 414–446.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Good, L., & Cooper, R. (2016). “But it's your job to be friendly”: Employees coping with and contesting sexual harassment from customers in the service sector. Gender, Work & Organization, 23 (5), 447–469.Google Scholar
Grandey, A. A., Kern, J. H., & Frone, M. R. (2007). Verbal abuse from outsiders versus insiders: Comparing frequency, impact on emotional exhaustion, and the role of emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12 (1), 63–79.Google Scholar
Handy, J. (2006). Sexual harassment in small town New Zealand: A qualitative study of three contrasting organizations. Gender, Work & Organization, 13 (1), 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hekman, D. R., Aquino, K., Owens, B. P., Mitchell, T. R., Schilpzand, P., & Leavitt, K. (2010). An examination of whether and how racial and gender biases influence customer satisfaction. Academy of Management Journal, 53 (2), 238–264.Google Scholar
Jones, K. P., Arena, D. F., Nittrouer, C. L., Alonso, N. M., & Lindsey, A. P. (2017). Subtle discrimination in the workplace: A vicious cycle. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 10 (1), 51–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kline, J. (2016). Fifteen percent or less: A Title VII analysis of racial discrimination in restaurant tipping. Iowa Law Review, 101, 1651–1681.Google Scholar
Korczynski, M., & Evans, C. (2013). Customer abuse to service workers: An analysis of its social creation within the service economy. Work, Employment & Society, 27 (5), 768–784.Google Scholar
Lopez, S. H. (2010). Workers, managers, and customers triangles of power in work communities. Work and Occupations, 37 (3), 251–271.Google Scholar
Lynn, M., & Sturman, M. (2011). Is the customer always right? The potential for racial bias in customer evaluations of employee performance. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 41 (9), 2312–2324.Google Scholar
Parrett, M. (2011). Customer discrimination in restaurants: Dining frequency matters. Journal of Labor Research, 32 (2), 87–112.Google Scholar
Reynolds, K. L., & Harris, L. C. (2006). Deviant customer behavior: An exploration of frontline employee tactics. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 14 (2), 95–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaefers, T., Wittkowski, K., Benoit, S., & Ferraro, R. (2016). Contagious effects of customer misbehavior in access-based services. Journal of Service Research, 19 (1), 3–21.Google Scholar
Wang, L. I. (2016). When the customer is king: Employment discrimination as customer service. Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law, 23 (3), 249–292.Google Scholar
Wootson, C. R., Jr. (2016, August 21). This couple didn't tip their Latina server. They left a hateful message instead. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/21/this-couple-didnt-tip-their-latina-server-they-left-a-hateful-message-instead/?utm_term=.8d62cfeb9d33 Google Scholar
Wu, L., Han, R., & Mattila, A. S. (2016). A double whammy effect of ethnicity and gender on consumer responses to management level service failures. Journal of Service Management, 27 (3), 339–359.Google Scholar
Yagil, D. (2008). When the customer is wrong: A review of research on aggression and sexual harassment in service encounters. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 13 (2), 141–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar