Can a smile help healing service failures? The interplay of employee emotions, guest emotions and justice perceptions for successful service recoveries in the hospitality industry

Drawing on emotional contagion and justice theory, this paper investigates frontline employees' emotions as drivers of guests' emotions and guest behavior in hospitality service recoveries. Two experimental studies show that frontline employees' smiling and high levels of distributive and interaction-based justice drive company success (e.g., customer satisfaction, word of mouth) by evoking positive emotions in guests. Moreover, the studies find that guests' negative emotions are less important in driving company success than their positive emotions when it comes to service recoveries. This research contributes to the existing theory by highlighting the relevance of frontline employees' smiling and emotional contagion for guests’ positive emotions and behavior. Hence, hospitality managers should consider advising frontline employees to smile and show justice-inducing behavior to elicit positive emotions, satisfaction, and word of mouth among guests.