What make banks’ front-line staff more customer oriented? The role of interactional justice
International Journal of Bank Marketing
ISSN: 0265-2323
Article publication date: 24 February 2020
Issue publication date: 2 June 2020
Abstract
Purpose
While technological advances have been changing the way that services are delivered to customers, direct interaction between banks’ front-line staff and customers still holds its distinct position in the banking sector. This research investigates the relationship between interactional justice and the willingness of commercial banks’ front-line staff to engage in customer-centric behaviors, as well as the mediators behind this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
This research combined both qualitative and quantitative research methods. In-depth interviews were employed to explore the potential mechanisms underlying the relationship between interactional justice and customer-centric behavior and to develop the specific measurement scale for customer-centric behavior in the banking service context. A survey was conducted to test the conceptual model using a sample of 312 customer contact employees working in Vietnamese commercial banks.
Findings
The research results indicate that interactional justice significantly enhances employees’ willingness to engage in customer-centric behaviors, and this relationship is partially mediated by overall job satisfaction and the leader-member exchange relationship.
Research limitations/implications
This research faces several limitations. The first limitation concerns the fact that the data are based on self-reports, which might lead to common method biases. Second, this study used a sample drawn from the North of Vietnam only. Third, this study adopted a limited set of measurement items due to the concerns of model parsimony and data collection efficiency. Fourth, we followed prior justice work to assume the linear relationship between interactional justice and leader-member exchange, in which the leader-member exchange is hypothesized to be the outcome of fair treatment (Erdogan and Liden, 2006; Masterson et al., 2000). Last, we only considered how leaders treat their followers through the lens of interactional justice, while interactional justice differentiation has also been affirmed as a crucial determinant of leader-member exchange and employees’ performance.
Originality/value
This research is noteworthy that it is the first to take a social exchange perspective to examine customer-oriented behavior as an outcome of interpersonal interactions in the workplace. Accordingly, it delivers a key message to bank supervisors: “Treat employees the way you want your customers to be treated.”
Keywords
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank staff of Vietnamese commercial banks, namely Vietcombank, Vietinbank, BIDV, Agribank, Military Bank, Lien Viet Post Bank, Tien Phong Bank and Dong A Bank for their active participation in our research.
Citation
Dang, T.T. and Pham, A.D. (2020), "What make banks’ front-line staff more customer oriented? The role of interactional justice", International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 777-798. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBM-09-2019-0321
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited