Do morally disengaged employees withdraw from customer-oriented citizenship behavior in response to customers’ uncivil behavior?

Leveraging moral disengagement theory, the objective of this study is to explore the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions under which frontline employees withdraw from customer-oriented citizenship behavior (CCB) in response to customer incivility. We test moderated mediation models in the hotel context using a three-wave survey with 307 employee–supervisor dyads. Our findings suggest that employees encountering uncivil customer interactions withdraw more from CCB. This relationship is mediated by moral disengagement. Moral identity and ethical climate moderate this mediated relationship such that when moral identity and perceived ethical climate are high, there is less moral disengagement in response to uncivil behavior. Consequently, withdrawal from CCB is also less in the presence of high values of these moderators. Our findings have implications for frontline employees’ management.