Karyn Wang | The University of Sydney (original) (raw)

Papers by Karyn Wang

Academy of Management Proceedings

Contemporary Issues in Work and Organisations, 2019

Emotional displays play a critical role in guiding interpersonal interactions and social judgment... more Emotional displays play a critical role in guiding interpersonal interactions and social judgments processes between employees and customers. While the perception of inauthentic employee emotional displays by customers predicts poorer customer outcomes, the perception of emotions in others are often inaccurate and errors are common. In this paper, we examine whether perceptions regarding the emotional performance of service employees are accurate and explore the circumstances under which customers are more or less likely to be accurate in their perceptions. Across two experiments, we consider the role of dual-processes in cognition and emotional intelligence in driving accurate perceptions of employee emotions. The findings from Study 1 indicates that customers were more inaccurate when guided by analytical and systematic processes, via the experience of negative affect, when emotional intelligence was low. In Study 2, we find evidence that customers were more accurate in their perc...

Journal of Service Research, 2021

Research indicates that a customer’s service experience is shaped by their past experiences with ... more Research indicates that a customer’s service experience is shaped by their past experiences with the firm. However, the extent to which past experiences with customers shape frontline service employees’ delivery of services has not been examined. We propose that the analysis of service encounters as discrete, independent units ignores possible linkages between customer experiences via frontline employees. Adopting a resource spill-over perspective across two studies, we find that employees’ experience of customer mistreatment compromised their subsequent service delivery. Using an experiment in Study 1, we find that these effects are mediated by changes in the employee’s self-control capacity. Using a field sample in Study 2, we find that these effects are moderated by the employee’s dispositional self-control capacity and their motivation to commit to display rules. Our findings show how service encounter outcomes can be shaped by distal service events and call for a more holistic ...

Psychology & Marketing, 2021

Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2016

Purpose The culture of an organization shapes the attitudes and behaviors of employees and plays ... more Purpose The culture of an organization shapes the attitudes and behaviors of employees and plays a key role in driving organizational outcomes. Yet, it is enormously challenging to manage or change. The purpose of this paper is to review the recent literature on culture change interventions in health care organizations to identify the common themes underpinning these interventions. Design/methodology/approach The paper is developed from an extensive review of the literature on culture change interventions in health care from 2005 to 2015, building on previous reviews and highlighting examples of good practice. Findings All culture change interventions included in the review used processes and techniques that can be classified into Lewin’s (1951) three stage model of change. These include providing evidence for the need for change through data, a range of successful change strategies, and strategies for embedding the culture change into business as usual. Practical implications There...

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2012

We investigate the effects of employee emotional labor strategies (faked positive and suppressed ... more We investigate the effects of employee emotional labor strategies (faked positive and suppressed negative emotions) on service satisfaction, and the moderating impact of employee-customer relations...

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2015

Using two samples of service workers from different industries, daily occurrence of customer mist... more Using two samples of service workers from different industries, daily occurrence of customer mistreatment has a positive effect on employees helping behaviors displayed on the next day. Furthermore, this effect is mediated by employees' fluctuation in negative mood.

Personnel Psychology, 2016

Mistreatment by customers is a common occurrence for many frontline service employees. Although s... more Mistreatment by customers is a common occurrence for many frontline service employees. Although some evidence suggests that employees engage in dysfunctional workplace behaviors as a result of mistreatment, others studies have suggested that employees may cope with such negative experiences by helping others. Drawing on negative state relief theory, we conducted 2 studies to test these relationships and examine whether service employees cope with negative emotions arising from such daily customer mistreatment by engaging in helping others. In Study 1, daily surveys from 70 restaurant employees showed that daily customer mistreatment predicted the experience of negative moods the next morning, which, in turn, led to higher levels of coworker helping the next day. In Study 2, daily surveys from 54 retail employees showed that daily customer mistreatment led to higher customer helping the next day, but only when customer orientation was high. Our results further show that helping behavior was associated with elevated positive affective experiences and that the proposed relationships differ depending on whether customer mistreatment is measured at a daily or a cumulative perspective. Specifically, cumulative customer mistreatment over time decreased general helping. These findings are discussed in relation to employees' coping strategies towards acute and cumulative mistreatment.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2015

Hyland, Lee, and Mills (2015) open a door for discussing the benefits, utility, and challenges of... more Hyland, Lee, and Mills (2015) open a door for discussing the benefits, utility, and challenges of mindfulness at work. Although it is evident from Hyland and colleagues that mindfulness can minimize negative employee outcomes (such as the experience of stress, strain, and burnout) and promote cognitive functioning, there seems to be limited consideration of how mindfulness actively promotes employee growth, development, high performance, and engagement. In this commentary, we speak to how mindfulness can encourage positive well-being at work in a hospital context. Specifically, we consider how mindfulness programs are currently being used in the ongoing training and development of nurses to cultivate patient-centered compassionate care. We propose that mindfulness can encourage positive well-being and compassionate care via the cultivation of resources and the creation of resource gain spirals, and we provide preliminary evidence for the utility of mindfulness training in hospital c...

Mistreatment by customers is a common occurrence for frontline service employees that is associat... more Mistreatment by customers is a common occurrence for frontline service employees that is associated with employees’ impaired long-term well-being and performance. Theoretical work has attributed th...

European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 2015

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2014

The impact of emotional labor on customer outcomes is gaining considerable attention in the liter... more The impact of emotional labor on customer outcomes is gaining considerable attention in the literature, with research suggesting that the authenticity of emotional displays may positively impact customer outcomes. However, research investigating the impact of more inauthentic emotions on service delivery outcomes is mixed (see . This study explores 2 potential reasons for why the service outcomes of inauthentic emotions are largely inconsistent: the impact of distinct surface acting strategies and the role of service delivery context. Drawing on social-functional theories of emotions, we surveyed 243 dyads of employees and customers from a wide variety of services to examine the links between employee surface acting and customer service satisfaction, and whether this relationship is moderated by relationship strength and service personalization. Our findings suggest that faking positive emotions has no bearing on service satisfaction, but suppressing negative emotions interacts with contextual factors to predict customers' service satisfaction, in line with social-functional theories of emotions. Specifically, customers who know the employee well are less sensitive to the negative effects of suppressed negative emotions, and customers in highly personalized service encounters are more sensitive to the negative effects of suppressed negative emotions. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications.

Intelligence and hard work are not enough to achieve high performance in an organization. We prop... more Intelligence and hard work are not enough to achieve high performance in an organization. We propose that especially in a large and complex organization such as a MNC, subsidiary managers rely on their networks to get things done. In this study, we examined the relations of network building activity with subsidiary manager performance within a MNC context. We investigate how external and internal environmental factors such as perceived environmental uncertainty and perceived organizational support (POS), affect the relationship between network building and manager performance. Hypotheses are tested using data from 213 subsidiary managers from a large MNC with 92 subsidiaries in 27 countries. Results suggest that perceived environmental uncertainty with POS is positively related to subsidiary managers’ network building activity, and the network building with access to strategic information is positively related to their performance. However, when POS is low, the relationship between ...

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2014

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2014

The impact of emotional labor on customer outcomes is gaining considerable attention in the liter... more The impact of emotional labor on customer outcomes is gaining considerable attention in the literature, with research suggesting that the authenticity of emotional displays may positively impact customer outcomes. However, research investigating the impact of more inauthentic emotions on service delivery outcomes is mixed (see . This study explores 2 potential reasons for why the service outcomes of inauthentic emotions are largely inconsistent: the impact of distinct surface acting strategies and the role of service delivery context. Drawing on social-functional theories of emotions, we surveyed 243 dyads of employees and customers from a wide variety of services to examine the links between employee surface acting and customer service satisfaction, and whether this relationship is moderated by relationship strength and service personalization. Our findings suggest that faking positive emotions has no bearing on service satisfaction, but suppressing negative emotions interacts with contextual factors to predict customers' service satisfaction, in line with social-functional theories of emotions. Specifically, customers who know the employee well are less sensitive to the negative effects of suppressed negative emotions, and customers in highly personalized service encounters are more sensitive to the negative effects of suppressed negative emotions. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2015

Academy of Management Proceedings

Contemporary Issues in Work and Organisations, 2019

Emotional displays play a critical role in guiding interpersonal interactions and social judgment... more Emotional displays play a critical role in guiding interpersonal interactions and social judgments processes between employees and customers. While the perception of inauthentic employee emotional displays by customers predicts poorer customer outcomes, the perception of emotions in others are often inaccurate and errors are common. In this paper, we examine whether perceptions regarding the emotional performance of service employees are accurate and explore the circumstances under which customers are more or less likely to be accurate in their perceptions. Across two experiments, we consider the role of dual-processes in cognition and emotional intelligence in driving accurate perceptions of employee emotions. The findings from Study 1 indicates that customers were more inaccurate when guided by analytical and systematic processes, via the experience of negative affect, when emotional intelligence was low. In Study 2, we find evidence that customers were more accurate in their perc...

Journal of Service Research, 2021

Research indicates that a customer’s service experience is shaped by their past experiences with ... more Research indicates that a customer’s service experience is shaped by their past experiences with the firm. However, the extent to which past experiences with customers shape frontline service employees’ delivery of services has not been examined. We propose that the analysis of service encounters as discrete, independent units ignores possible linkages between customer experiences via frontline employees. Adopting a resource spill-over perspective across two studies, we find that employees’ experience of customer mistreatment compromised their subsequent service delivery. Using an experiment in Study 1, we find that these effects are mediated by changes in the employee’s self-control capacity. Using a field sample in Study 2, we find that these effects are moderated by the employee’s dispositional self-control capacity and their motivation to commit to display rules. Our findings show how service encounter outcomes can be shaped by distal service events and call for a more holistic ...

Psychology & Marketing, 2021

Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2016

Purpose The culture of an organization shapes the attitudes and behaviors of employees and plays ... more Purpose The culture of an organization shapes the attitudes and behaviors of employees and plays a key role in driving organizational outcomes. Yet, it is enormously challenging to manage or change. The purpose of this paper is to review the recent literature on culture change interventions in health care organizations to identify the common themes underpinning these interventions. Design/methodology/approach The paper is developed from an extensive review of the literature on culture change interventions in health care from 2005 to 2015, building on previous reviews and highlighting examples of good practice. Findings All culture change interventions included in the review used processes and techniques that can be classified into Lewin’s (1951) three stage model of change. These include providing evidence for the need for change through data, a range of successful change strategies, and strategies for embedding the culture change into business as usual. Practical implications There...

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2012

We investigate the effects of employee emotional labor strategies (faked positive and suppressed ... more We investigate the effects of employee emotional labor strategies (faked positive and suppressed negative emotions) on service satisfaction, and the moderating impact of employee-customer relations...

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2015

Using two samples of service workers from different industries, daily occurrence of customer mist... more Using two samples of service workers from different industries, daily occurrence of customer mistreatment has a positive effect on employees helping behaviors displayed on the next day. Furthermore, this effect is mediated by employees' fluctuation in negative mood.

Personnel Psychology, 2016

Mistreatment by customers is a common occurrence for many frontline service employees. Although s... more Mistreatment by customers is a common occurrence for many frontline service employees. Although some evidence suggests that employees engage in dysfunctional workplace behaviors as a result of mistreatment, others studies have suggested that employees may cope with such negative experiences by helping others. Drawing on negative state relief theory, we conducted 2 studies to test these relationships and examine whether service employees cope with negative emotions arising from such daily customer mistreatment by engaging in helping others. In Study 1, daily surveys from 70 restaurant employees showed that daily customer mistreatment predicted the experience of negative moods the next morning, which, in turn, led to higher levels of coworker helping the next day. In Study 2, daily surveys from 54 retail employees showed that daily customer mistreatment led to higher customer helping the next day, but only when customer orientation was high. Our results further show that helping behavior was associated with elevated positive affective experiences and that the proposed relationships differ depending on whether customer mistreatment is measured at a daily or a cumulative perspective. Specifically, cumulative customer mistreatment over time decreased general helping. These findings are discussed in relation to employees' coping strategies towards acute and cumulative mistreatment.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2015

Hyland, Lee, and Mills (2015) open a door for discussing the benefits, utility, and challenges of... more Hyland, Lee, and Mills (2015) open a door for discussing the benefits, utility, and challenges of mindfulness at work. Although it is evident from Hyland and colleagues that mindfulness can minimize negative employee outcomes (such as the experience of stress, strain, and burnout) and promote cognitive functioning, there seems to be limited consideration of how mindfulness actively promotes employee growth, development, high performance, and engagement. In this commentary, we speak to how mindfulness can encourage positive well-being at work in a hospital context. Specifically, we consider how mindfulness programs are currently being used in the ongoing training and development of nurses to cultivate patient-centered compassionate care. We propose that mindfulness can encourage positive well-being and compassionate care via the cultivation of resources and the creation of resource gain spirals, and we provide preliminary evidence for the utility of mindfulness training in hospital c...

Mistreatment by customers is a common occurrence for frontline service employees that is associat... more Mistreatment by customers is a common occurrence for frontline service employees that is associated with employees’ impaired long-term well-being and performance. Theoretical work has attributed th...

European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 2015

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2014

The impact of emotional labor on customer outcomes is gaining considerable attention in the liter... more The impact of emotional labor on customer outcomes is gaining considerable attention in the literature, with research suggesting that the authenticity of emotional displays may positively impact customer outcomes. However, research investigating the impact of more inauthentic emotions on service delivery outcomes is mixed (see . This study explores 2 potential reasons for why the service outcomes of inauthentic emotions are largely inconsistent: the impact of distinct surface acting strategies and the role of service delivery context. Drawing on social-functional theories of emotions, we surveyed 243 dyads of employees and customers from a wide variety of services to examine the links between employee surface acting and customer service satisfaction, and whether this relationship is moderated by relationship strength and service personalization. Our findings suggest that faking positive emotions has no bearing on service satisfaction, but suppressing negative emotions interacts with contextual factors to predict customers' service satisfaction, in line with social-functional theories of emotions. Specifically, customers who know the employee well are less sensitive to the negative effects of suppressed negative emotions, and customers in highly personalized service encounters are more sensitive to the negative effects of suppressed negative emotions. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications.

Intelligence and hard work are not enough to achieve high performance in an organization. We prop... more Intelligence and hard work are not enough to achieve high performance in an organization. We propose that especially in a large and complex organization such as a MNC, subsidiary managers rely on their networks to get things done. In this study, we examined the relations of network building activity with subsidiary manager performance within a MNC context. We investigate how external and internal environmental factors such as perceived environmental uncertainty and perceived organizational support (POS), affect the relationship between network building and manager performance. Hypotheses are tested using data from 213 subsidiary managers from a large MNC with 92 subsidiaries in 27 countries. Results suggest that perceived environmental uncertainty with POS is positively related to subsidiary managers’ network building activity, and the network building with access to strategic information is positively related to their performance. However, when POS is low, the relationship between ...

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2014

Journal of Applied Psychology, 2014

The impact of emotional labor on customer outcomes is gaining considerable attention in the liter... more The impact of emotional labor on customer outcomes is gaining considerable attention in the literature, with research suggesting that the authenticity of emotional displays may positively impact customer outcomes. However, research investigating the impact of more inauthentic emotions on service delivery outcomes is mixed (see . This study explores 2 potential reasons for why the service outcomes of inauthentic emotions are largely inconsistent: the impact of distinct surface acting strategies and the role of service delivery context. Drawing on social-functional theories of emotions, we surveyed 243 dyads of employees and customers from a wide variety of services to examine the links between employee surface acting and customer service satisfaction, and whether this relationship is moderated by relationship strength and service personalization. Our findings suggest that faking positive emotions has no bearing on service satisfaction, but suppressing negative emotions interacts with contextual factors to predict customers' service satisfaction, in line with social-functional theories of emotions. Specifically, customers who know the employee well are less sensitive to the negative effects of suppressed negative emotions, and customers in highly personalized service encounters are more sensitive to the negative effects of suppressed negative emotions. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2015