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Increasing Energy and Performance Through Customer Passion: An Organizational Level Study

Emotions and the Organizational Fabric

ISBN: 978-1-78350-939-3, eISBN: 978-1-78350-934-8

Publication date: 14 August 2014

Abstract

This study investigates the situations in which productive organizational energy (POE) and organizational performance increase through customer passion, that is, perceived customers’ affective commitment and customers’ positive word-of-mouth behavior. We integrate research on POE with research on customer influences on employees. Based on emotional contagion processes we develop hypotheses for the energizing influences of customers at the organizational level. We test the hypotheses using a dataset containing 495 board members and 8,299 employees of 152 organizations. The results show that customer passion is positively related to POE, which is in turn positively related to organizational performance. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the effect of customer passion on organizational performance through POE depends on top management team’s (TMT’s) customer orientation. By providing first insights into the linkages and contingencies of customer passion, POE, and organizational performance, this study puts forth a more holistic understanding of the energizing effect of customers on organizations.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgment

The authors thank Ryan Quinn for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter.

Citation

Kipfelsberger, P. and Bruch, H. (2014), "Increasing Energy and Performance Through Customer Passion: An Organizational Level Study", Emotions and the Organizational Fabric (Research on Emotion in Organizations, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 49-78. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1746-979120140000010000

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014. This chapter is based on a section of the doctoral thesis “Energizing Organizations through Customers: Linkages, Mechanisms, and Contingencies” of Petra Kipfelsberger accepted by the University of St. Gallen on May 17, 2013.