Empowered to excel: How and when customer empowering behaviors ignite employee customer-oriented citizenship behaviors

Empowerment is commonly acknowledged as a crucial managerial strategy in the hospitality sector. Although academic research has extensively explored empowerment from organizational and supervisory perspectives, the role of customer empowering behaviors toward employees remains largely unexplored. Our research addresses this significant gap by examining how and when customer empowering behaviors impact customer-oriented citizenship behaviors (COCBs). Grounded in social exchange theory, we propose that customer empowering behaviors enhance frontline employees’ COCBs through the mediating mechanism of customer-employee exchange. Our investigation further identifies proactive personality as a crucial boundary condition that shapes this relationship – the positive influence of customer empowering behaviors on COCBs intensifies among employees who exhibit higher proactive personality traits. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a multi-wave, multi-source survey, which yielded strong empirical support for the proposed relationships. This research makes significant contributions by advancing our theoretical understanding of customer-employee interactions while providing valuable insights for hospitality management practitioners.