Motives for service sabotage: an empirical study of front-line workers

Lloyd C. Harrisa and Emmanuel Ogbonnab∗

aWarwick Business School, The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK; bCardiff BusinessSchool, Cardiff University, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK

(Received 10 December 2010; final version received 14 April 2011)

Although researchers have called for a greater understanding of front-line employeebehaviour during service encounters, few studies have been directed at the topic ofservice sabotage in general, and at the motives of such behaviours in particular. Thispaper presents systematic empirical insights into the motives of employee sabotagein the service sector. The evidence suggests varying motives for forms of servicesabotage ranging from the benign, to the recalcitrant, to the, significantly lesscommon, malicious. The findings of the study indicate the necessity for studies ofemployee work-based behaviours to incorporate a more complex but morecomprehensive conceptualization of employee motivations for both sabotage andresistance-related activities.

Keywords: service sabotage; front-line workers; employee motives

Introduction

It is commonly argued that an understanding of both positive and negative employee

behaviours in the workplace is crucial for theoretical advancement in employment

research (see Peccei & Rosenthal, 1997; Sturdy, 1998). This position is probably more per-

tinent in the context of the service sector where the behaviour of front-line workers is

argued to be the key to achieving customer satisfaction (see Sergeant & Frenkel, 2000)

and even organizational survival (Singh, 2000). However, interestingly, despite the wide-

spread acceptance of the importance of front-line employee behaviour in service organiz-

ations, it is surprising that a wide range of such behaviours have not been subjected to

scrutiny by scholars in management studies in general. In particular, a key area where

there is a shortage of empirical research is the topic of sabotage by employees.

The absence of studies of employee sabotage was first identified over twenty years ago

by Jermier (1988, p. 103) when he argued that ‘well developed concepts of workplace

sabotage are not incorporated into organizational social science, leaving its meaning,

causes, and consequences subject to folk wisdom, popular opinion, and casual conjecture’.

Although there have been some studies of sabotage in the intervening years, these have

been plagued by a number of limitations. For example, studies of sabotage commonly

focus on manufacturing (see Ackroyd & Thompson, 1999) where sabotage is directed

to the firm and co-workers (rather than customers) and where the effects are delayed.

Similarly, the limited studies of sabotage into services have tended to be externally

driven with a focus on single case studies (see Analoui, 1995) and anecdotal evidence

(Crino, 1994). Further, the studies of Harris and Ogbonna (2002, 2006) concentrated on

the antecedents and consequences of sabotage behaviours rather than the motives of

ISSN 0264-2069 print/ISSN 1743-9507 online

# 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02642069.2011.582496

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∗Corresponding author. Email: ogbonna@cardiff.ac.uk

The Service Industries Journal

Vol. 32, No. 13, October 2012, 2027–2046

such behaviours. We argue that systematic empirical research into the motives of beha-

viours that are designed to sabotage customer service is required for a variety of

reasons. Firstly, the service sector is growing in significance and is now the key source

of employment and economic activity in many industrialized economies (see Weissenber-

ger-Eibl & Koch, 2007). In this regard, a greater understanding of the full range of beha-

viours that may have an impact on the performance of service organizations is required.

Secondly, there are particular differences in the experiences of employees in the service

sector when compared with the manufacturing sector. These differences require explora-

tion in order to develop more inclusive understanding of particular idiosyncratic service

phenomena (see Harley, Allen, & Sargent, 2007). Thirdly, additional research into the

behaviour of employees undertaking customer interface work in services is needed to

uncover the wide range of subjectivities that are inherent in the multiple and sometimes

incompatible expectations wherein powerless, least skilled and least rewarded workers

are key to business success.

The aim of this paper is to present systematic empirical insights into the motives of

employee sabotage in the service sector. Specifically, we contribute to the literature on

the dynamics of employee behaviours in services. In this regard, while studies of

service behaviour from marketing perspectives have commonly viewed employee behav-

iour as relatively unproblematic, and employee relations scholars have generally presented

such behaviours merely as a response to the actions of exploitative managements (see the

recent review by Ogbonna, 2010), a gap exists in the literature in relation to the agency of

service workers. That is, we provide empirical evaluation of the variety of reasons why

service workers consciously choose to engage in behaviours that are designed to harm

service.

This paper is structured in the following way. First, we provide a brief review of the

existing literature on sabotage and negative employee behaviours and we locate service

sabotage within these studies. This is followed by a presentation of the research design

and data collection methods employed in the study. The findings are then presented

prior to the discussion of the contributions, the limitations of the study and a discussion

of potentially fruitful avenues for future research.

Sabotage and service staff behaviour

Commentators have estimated that up to 75% (Harper, 1990), 85% (Harris & Ogbonna,

2002) or even 96% (Slora, 1991) of workers routinely behave in a way that can be described

as either intentionally dysfunctional or deliberately deviant. Although the financial costs of

sabotage by employees are difficult to assess, Murphy (1993) suggests that such behaviours

cost US businesses up to $200 billion annually. Indeed, notwithstanding some of the con-

structive consequences of employee deviance (see Warren, 2003), studies indicate that

sabotage actions are damaging to the profitability of firms (Kolz, 1999), potentially

harmful to customers (Harris & Ogbonna, 2006) and even a danger to organizational survi-

val (Analoui & Kakabadse, 1992). However, despite the prevalence of sabotage behaviours,

studies of customer service have largely ignored this, preferring instead to focus on the com-

ponents of successful service delivery (see Ogbonna, 2010). In what follows, we provide a

brief overview of the terms and concepts that are in use by researchers studying negative

behaviours. The aim of this is to locate our study and to provide our definition of service

sabotage. Thereafter, we present a review of the existing studies of sabotage in general

and service sabotage in particular. Finally, we extend our review to studies of negative

employee behaviours from the wider literature on employment research.

2028 L. C. Harris and E. Ogbonna

Definition of terms

Prior to our review of the literature, it is important to provide an overview of the terms that

are discussed in this paper and to provide our definition of service sabotage. In this regard,

given the potentially destructive consequences of negative employee behaviours, it is

perhaps unsurprising to find that such issues have been highlighted and discussed by scho-

lars for many years (for example, Taylor, 1947; Miller, 1920; Dalton, 1948; Baldamus,

1957; Brown, 1977; Anderton & Keily, 1988; Robinson & O’Leary-Kelly, 1998;

Mulki, Jaramillo, & Locander, 2006). However, the diversity of such studies probably

explains why scholars have adopted a wide range of terms to describe such employee

behaviours (Harris & Ogbonna, 2002). Griffin, O’Leary-Kelly, and Collins (1998)

prefer the term ‘dysfunctional behaviours’, possibly indicating a managerial bias

towards explaining such acts as ‘irrational’ or ‘illogical’ (at least from the perspective

of management). A similar bias exists in the use of the label ‘counterproductive beha-

viours’ (Kolz, 1999; Sykes, 1997) which again appears to adopt the perspective of man-

agers. Giacalone and Greenberg (1997) adopt the term ‘antisocial’, which suggests a

deviance from widely shared social norms and indicates a conscious choice. This is also

apparent in the use of the phrase ‘employee deviance’ which has been variously applied

to production, property, organizational and inter-personal dimensions (Hollinger, 1991;

Robinson & Bennett, 1995; Aqunio et al., 1999). Possibly the least value-laden term is

that of employee ‘misbehaviour’, favored in the comprehensive analysis of Ackroyd

and Thompson (1999) and also in Sprouse (1992). However, the focus of this study is

service sabotage and, consistent with the earlier studies of Harris and Ogbonna (2002,

p. 166; 2006) on the service sector, the label ‘service sabotage’ is employed to refer to

‘organizational member behaviours that are intentionally designed negatively to affect

service’.

Service sabotage: a review of literature

Studies of sabotage have generated some insights into the various forms of such employee

behaviours. For example, Analoui (1992) argues that sabotage can be individual or collec-

tive and also overt or covert (sabotage, in this case, rather narrowly defined as destructive

practices). Taylor and Walton (1971) categorize sabotage as worker efforts to reduce frus-

tration and tension, to make work easier or to assert control, while Linstead (1985) notes

the symbolic meaning of sabotage efforts. While such studies contribute to our understand-

ing of the variance in sabotage behaviours, typically the focus is on industrial contexts. As

such, the growing service sector is overlooked and under-studied.

However, the work of Harris and Ogbonna (2002) explicitly concentrates on service

sabotage. Harris and Ogbonna (2002) adopt a broad view of sabotage in a services

context to include intentional acts that negatively affect service no matter whether such

acts are noticed by customers or managers. Finding that over 85% of informants were

recently involved in sabotage, Harris and Ogbonna (2002) argue that such actions vary

according to the extent to which such behaviours are covert or overt and/or routinized

or intermittent. Thereafter, they identify and elucidate eleven individual, group, organiz-

ational and environmental factors, which they argue are antecedents to service sabotage

behaviours, as well as ten employee effects, impacts on customers and organizational con-

sequences. Harris and Ogbonna (2006) follow their earlier qualitative work with a sub-

sequent survey-based study. Harris and Ogbonna (2006) use structural equation

modelling to supply a model of seven drivers (risk-taking proclivity, need for social

approval by work colleagues, desire to stay and pursue career in current firm, extent of

The Service Industries Journal 2029

surveillance, extent of cultural control, employee–customer contact and fluidity of the

labour market) and six consequences (self-esteem, team spirit, employee–customer

rapport, functional quality and company performance) of service sabotage. However,

although these studies advance an understanding of the factors that help or hinder sabotage

as well as the consequences of such actions, the motives for such behaviours among

customer-contact service staff remain an overlooked issue.

Nevertheless, the motives for sabotage in general have received limited attention

(albeit, often anecdotal in nature). The few studies that have focused on motives

include Crino’s (1994) analysis of published accounts to explore potential motivations

for sabotage behaviours. Crino (1994) reviews narrative accounts of saboteurs (ranging

from nurses intentionally injecting lethal drugs to patients to Argentinean telephone engin-

eers snipping wires to workers dressing the Ken doll in Barbie’s clothes). While nearly all

of the narrative cases examined by Crino (1994) refer to major sabotage efforts (such as

killing patients or substantial monetary frauds) and are almost exclusively from non-

service contexts, this study provides one of the first systematic efforts to generate insights

into the motives for sabotage actions. A different study by Analoui (1995) undertakes a

case-based, empirical evaluation of the motives for sabotage as part of a wider study

that focuses on the forms of workplace sabotage actions. Analoui (1995) finds that 65%

of such acts are linked to employee discontent and dissatisfaction with management.

While Analoui (1995) acknowledges that these results are likely to be biased by the

context of the case concerned, this analysis adds value by highlighting that the potential

motives for sabotage arise from both intra- and extra-organizational pressures.

Motives for negative employee behaviours

Given the limited number of studies into the motives for service sabotage, it is useful to

turn to the wider literature on employment relationships which provides comprehensive

reviews of motives of negative behaviours. These diverse literatures can be divided into

two broad streams.

The first stream of research argues that the causes of individual behaviour are extrinsic

and are heavily shaped by factors outside the workplace (see Bennett & Robinson, 2003).

These researchers frequently argue that it is individual personality rather than ability that is

important in understanding individuals’ disposition to engage in negative employee be-

haviour (see Cullen & Sackett, 2003; Salgado, 2002). This line of reasoning suggests

that the personality traits of some employees predispose them to dysfunctional work beha-

viours such as sabotage. Thus, their motive to engage in such acts is in part a psychological

disposition and one that is heavily influenced by their individual personality traits. Indeed,

researchers working from this tradition have theorized that the key personality traits of

conscientiousness, agreeableness and emotional stability are predictors of dysfunctional

organizational behaviours such as absenteeism and turnover (see Judge, Martocchio, &

Thoresen, 1997; Barrick & Mount, 1991).

The second stream of studies that explore employee motives for negative behaviour

can be found in the series of research that adopt a critical management approach. These

researchers commonly theorize negative employee responses such as workplace sabotage

as the inevitable consequence of the struggle for control and resistance that is consistent

with capitalist modes of organizing (see Braverman, 1974; Edwards, 1979). Thus, these

researchers view control and resistance as the central ideologies that regulate employment

relationships and that are manifested in corporate attempts to control employees through

various practices that attempt to suppress their individual identities (see Willmott, 1993;

2030 L. C. Harris and E. Ogbonna

Jaros, 2001; Ogbonna & Wilkinson, 2003). Others have gone further to link dysfunctional

workplace behaviours such as sabotage to the elevation of the customer to King-like status

(see Knights, Sturdy, & Morgan, 1994; Sturdy, 1998), and the consequent increasing

demands that organizations place on their staff in their dealings with customers (see

Sturdy, 1998). In particular, it is argued that managements’ demand that front-line staff

behave deferentially towards customers constitutes a form of ideological assault (Harris

& Ogbonna, 2006), a process that has been linked to the increase in the number of custo-

mers that are abusive to front-line workers (see USDAW, 2004). Thus, this perspective

views employee behaviours such as sabotage as a form of resistance to oppressive manage-

ments, to provide psychological freedom and to protect workers from the excesses of man-

agement control (see Jermier, Knights, & Nord, 1995; Fleming & Spicer, 2003; Lawrence

& Robinson, 2007).

In summary, existing studies have explored workplace negative behaviours from a

variety of perspectives. Although many of these behaviours have received significant

empirical research attention, the phenomenon of sabotage in service contexts remains rela-

tively under-researched (see Harris & Ogbonna, 2006). In particular, while studies of

industrial sabotage have generated insights into the nature, forms and dynamics of sabo-

tage during production processes or in industrial contexts (Dubois, 1977; Linstead, 1985)

and recent advances have contributed insights into the forms of service sabotage (Harris &

Ogbonna, 2002), the motivations for service sabotage remain neglected and poorly under-

stood. Similarly, although studies of customer service either view the role of employees in

this process as unproblematic (see the review by Ogbonna, 2010) or as inherently exploi-

tative, there is limited research into the range of behaviours that are undertaken by employ-

ees involved in this process. The aim of this paper is to present systematic empirical

insights into the motives of employee sabotage in the service sector.

Research design and methodology

Given the relatively poorly understood nature of service sabotage and the paucity of

studies elucidating this phenomenon (Harris & Ogbonna, 2006), an exploratory research

design was deemed appropriate to elucidate the core concepts and to develop insights

into the relationships between these concepts. Harris and Ogbonna (2002) argue that the

study of employee attitudes and behaviours that are orthogonal to those espoused by man-

agers, such as service sabotage, is best achieved via the use of one-to-one, in-depth

interviews.

While other data collection methods have some advantages when studying covert

employee behaviours, the use of in-depth interviewing has been argued to be particularly

insightful when the focus is on both attitudes and behaviours. Further, as the phenomenon

of service sabotage is largely overlooked in extant research, in-depth interviews were

deemed the most suitable research methods as there is a need to clarify core concepts

and also to explore their relationships and dynamics (Stainback & Stainback, 1988;

Strauss & Corbin, 1998). The flexible nature of in-depth questioning enables the inter-

viewer to return to a topic several times during an interview, thus ensuring that all the

scheduled questions are explored (Bailey, 1994), while stimulating the informant’s

memory in an informal and personalized manner (Gorden, 1975). Further, the adaptable

nature of in-depth interviewing also aids the discovery of what has been described as

‘real’, ‘rich’ and ‘deep’ data (Stainback & Stainback, 1988). Miller (1991) argues that

the adaptability and interactivity of interviews reduces the probability of misinterpreta-

tions by both informants and researchers. These characteristics are of particular use

The Service Industries Journal 2031

when the issue under research is sensitive or ethically questionable (Iacobucci & Churchill

1999). The current study used open-ended questions, allowing the respondents to express

themselves and describe their experiences in their own words, thus generating rich and real

data and capturing ‘true’ depictions of incidents from the respondents’ perspective (Stauss

& Weinlich, 1997). A semi-structured interview protocol was developed prior to data col-

lection but was adapted to incorporate grounded insights throughout the data collection

process.

Given evidence of industry-specific ‘macrocultures’ (Abrahamson & Fombrun, 1994),

data were gathered from a single industry. The field research comprised 70 in-depth inter-

views with front-line employees from three firms in the hospitality industry. The hospital-

ity industry was deemed appropriate for a variety of reasons, including closeness of

customer-contact, economic importance and size (see Hartline & Jones, 1996; Hartline

& Ferrell, 1996; Brown & Dev, 2000). In particular, the bar, hotel and restaurant

sectors were regarded as appropriate environments. All three firms specified complete

anonymity and strict restrictions on publishing firm (and employee) details in return for

permitting access for a study of employee attitudes towards service. Nevertheless,

within these agreements it is possible to note that all three of the companies involved

are large with (recent) above industry-average performance. One firm predominately

focuses on hotels, one largely on restaurants (many with bars) while the final firm runs

bars (most of which serve food). Branch size varied from outlets with over 50 employees

to hotels with over 400 staff (many of whom were part-time). Within each organization, to

ensure that data were obtained from a wide range of perspectives and positions, a theor-

etical sampling plan (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) was employed. In each firm this plan was

designed to sample a suitable range of full- and part-time employees, job roles (according

to job titles), gender and lengths of tenure. All informants held positions that entailed a

large degree of customer service.

All interviews were conducted individually and, on average, lasted for about one hour

(although some lasted as long as two hours). Given the nature of the issues under discus-

sion, informants were frequently concerned that their responses remained confidential.

Indeed, many front-line employees supplied information that if made public could have

serious personal, group and even organizational ramifications. Consequently, after

formal and legally binding guarantees of anonymity, all interviews were audio recorded

and subsequently transcribed.

The collection of data ceased at the point termed ‘theoretical saturation’ by Strauss and

Corbin (1998), referring to the stage in data collection where no new insights are divulged.

Following the procedure recommended by Strauss and Corbin (1998), three types of

coding were adopted to analyze the data. First, open coding was used to discover and

identify the properties and dimensions of concepts in data. Second, axial coding was

employed to link the core categories together at the level of properties and dimensions.

Third, selective coding was used as a process of integrating and refining theory.

To guide and to systematize this process, data analysis was organized according to a

systematic process of transcript-based analysis and followed a form of the iterative

stage process summarized by Turner (1981). Transcripts were first analyzed for relevance

and non-relevant passages (such as greetings, interruptions, etc.) coded as non-relevant.

All relevant narratives (that is, discussions of work or work-related issues) were coded.

This process involved developing categories, saturating categories, developing abstract

definitions, using definitions, explaining categories, linking categories, and evaluating

links (supplemented by the iterative examination of the analysis at the end of each

step). Coding was undertaken separately by the two lead authors and the results compared.

2032 L. C. Harris and E. Ogbonna

Four discrepancies (largely pertaining to category labels) between these codings emerged

and were resolved through discussion.

Particular care was taken in coding the dominant motivations. In 95% of cases a single

overriding motive was identified. However, in the remaining cases, either no clear motive

was identifiable or (more commonly) the informant expressed a desire not to discuss that

particular incident further (often switching their focus to another ‘better’ example).

For reasons of parsimony, this paper presents what are simply representative and

illustrative narratives intended to demonstrate the consistency of informants’ views

(Zaltman, LeMasters, & Heffering, 1982). Following the agreed protocol for data collec-

tion, in order to maintain the anonymity of individuals and organizations, details such as

store names, informants’ names and locations have been altered and pseudonyms used

throughout.

Findings

In the current study, data analysis reveals five main motives for service workers to under-

take service sabotage. All of the employees interviewed had participated in at least three

acts of service sabotage within the last two weeks of their work (from the date of the inter-

view). On average, employees undertook or participated in acts of service sabotage twice

every three working-shifts, although in some cases this was considerably higher. As with

many phenomena, the motivations for such behaviours were often complex (and some-

times embarrassing for the informant). However, in over 95% of cases, a primary motiv-

ation was identifiable. Throughout this paper, references to the frequency of such

motivations refer to these primary motives.

Financial motives

The first and most common motivation for intentional service sabotage centred on finan-

cial reasons. Just over 25% of the incidents of service sabotage were primarily motivated

by financial reasons, with such acts often significantly affecting the financial well-being of

the employees. Commonly, service employees deliberately changed the service they

provide with a view to increase personal or group monetary rewards. This motivation prin-

cipally involved the judicious alteration of the speed of work in order to increase remu-

neration levels. Many service workers were part-time and were paid on an hourly basis,

which was often at the very minimum level permitted by the Minimum Wage legislation.

For such employees, the slowing of service could lead to relatively large increases in their

pay. Two restaurant workers explain:

I’m down for three, four-hour shifts – twelve hours, you see? If things get busier or if we over-run, then I’ve got to stay and finish up – you get paid for that. So, if things over-run by an hourhere or a half hour there, the hours tot up. So, you box it clever. Slow down a table with drinksright up until two (the last time a table is permitted to order a meal), serve them slowly or getthem extra coffees on the house – that sort of thing. I’d say I pick up at least two extra hours aweek – sometimes more. [Joe, Part-time restaurant worker, aged 20, 2 years experience]

For us girls in the daytimes, manufacturing a half hour here or there makes a big difference.By three, the manager’s vamoosed and Jane (a co-worker) has to go and get her kids fromschool, so I finish up. That means that I get the extra hours. [Edwina, Part-time restaurantworker, aged 43, 14 years experience]

However, other service workers are paid by the shift, by the week or (more rarely) by

the month. These employees, regardless of the impact on customers, greatly increased

their speed of service to minimize the time they spend working. A chef explains:

The Service Industries Journal 2033

We get paid by the week. So, for us, if we’re here until two in morning we get paid the same aswe would if we finish at ten. So, most week nights towards the end of service you just throwthe food out as quickly as you can so we can go home. Now, there’s a tip for you – you’llalways get a much better meal if you avoid coming in at the end of the night! [Alfred,Full-time Sous-chef, aged 36, 9 years experience]

Although the majority of employees who increase the speed of service for their advan-

tage do so exclusively for time-saving reasons, a small number reduced their hours of work

in the firm so that they are free to work elsewhere. Two hotel workers state:

I stuff books for Xxxx (an internet book/CD seller) during my time off. So, for me, the quickerI get out of here, the more money I earn. The more I earn, the happier I am. [Jossey, ‘Full-time’ chef/Part-time mail worker, aged 27, 10 years experience of kitchen work, 2 yearswork as mail worker]

I do the day shift here and then do decorating on the side. So, I wash dishes in the morning andlunch time and then work the afternoons on my jobs – cash in hand like. The trick here is towhip your way through it, finish it all and then you can nip off to the job you’ve got on. I guessI sneak three-four hours a week that way – perks of the job! [Lloyd, ‘Full-time’ kitchenworker, part-time self-employed decorator, aged 47, 10 years experience in kitchens, 20years experience of building trade]

For these employees, proportionally large (to their hotel wages) rewards can be gained

by minimizing their hours during shift work and undertaking additional (paid) jobs.

Employees with this rationale for service sabotage, whether they slow or speed-up

service, have a honed instrumental focus. The attainment of increased monetary income

is their goal and they alter service to suit their needs. However, this is not to suggest

that such employees follow these approaches without careful consideration of each situ-

ation. In all cases, informants described a considered process of decision making that care-

fully balanced the potential rewards. Two explain their thoughts regarding balancing

extending their unpaid time at work with the potential gains:

It is a balance – one table of stingy middle-aged ladies – a tenner tip against getting off anhour early? No contest. Fast and Furious it is and out they go. [Paula, Part-time restaurantworker, aged 32, 5 years experience]Sometimes it’s worth it – bunch of business men – expense account – free drinks and awhooper of a tip – now that’s worth keeping happy. You’ve got to think about it.[Michael, Part-time restaurant worker, aged 24, 6 years experience]

In this sense, while financial motivations formed a common rationale for service sabo-

tage, this motivation was far from irrational, and indeed, from the worker’s perspective

was intuitively logical.

Customer-driven motives

The second category of motivation for service sabotage centres on employees’ interpret-

ations and reactions to customer interactions. For many service workers, prolonged contact

with customers was far from fulfilling. Just over 24% of service sabotage incidents were

described by workers as triggered by the earlier actions of customers.

Service workers indicated that some acts of service sabotage were motivated by a

desire to harm the service of a particular customer (or group of customers), in order to

elicit revenge for an earlier perceived slight. This is consistent with both Spector (1997)

who argues that reflexive evaluations by employees frequently lead to that which they

label ‘antisocial’ behavioural reactions such as sabotage, as well as the work of Bies,

Tripp, and Kramer (1997) which highlights the issue of revenge behaviours by workers.

Linked to the previously discussed self-esteem sabotage motive, customer revenge

2034 L. C. Harris and E. Ogbonna

motives were typically associated with occasional rather than routinized acts of

sabotage (see Harris & Ogbonna, 2002). In each case, such intermittent acts were

argued to be responses to the earlier behaviours of customers. A member of housekeeping

explains:

I think it comes down to respect. In this job, you can’t expect everyone to be all sunny andsmiley, but I do think that they should be polite and respectful. Some of the customers arejust, totally unbelievable. They’re not just rude, they’ll go out of their way to be nasty andunpleasant. I remember a guy in (room) 407. I always remember the number. He actuallycame and got really aggressive with me because his room hadn’t been cleaned. It was only9.30 in the morning – I’d only just started. I couldn’t believe someone could be so unpleasant,so rude. I thought, ‘well, [expletive] you, buddy’ and did everything I could to get the bastard.[Sally, Full-time housekeeper, aged 23, 2 years experience]

In this regard, poor behaviours by customers were viewed as the cause of negative feel-

ings by employees, who in turn were motivated intentionally to take revenge via various

acts of sabotage. This chain of events is clear in the following narratives:

This guy tried the clicking fingers routine. What a [expletive]! Disrespect me and I dissed himgood and proper. Spat in his coffee and watched him drink it up! ‘Garcon’ my [expletive]![Michael, Part-time restaurant worker, aged 24, 6 years experience]A guy yesterday swore blind I’d short changed him – said he’d given me a twenty. No way –we didn’t even have a twenty in the till – lying little [expletive]. Still, all those ‘large’whiskies he drank afterward were far from large if you know what I mean! [Fred, Full-time bartender, aged 23, 3 years experience]

Although the initiating customer behaviours varied from incident to incident, data

analysis indicated that responses to such customer misbehaviours (Tonglet, 2002; Fuller-

ton & Punj, 2004) were linked to the nature of the customer’s behaviour. First, where per-

ceived snubs by customers were public (that is, witnessed by other workers or customers),

the acts of sabotage (revenge) were, typically, more severe. Second, where workers con-

sidered the actions of customers to be personal or spiteful, covert acts of sabotage were

common, and in some cases occurred days or even weeks after the offending behaviour.

A restaurant worker states:

We have this old couple, come very Wednesday – always leave a large tip – one time and thecoffees were a little late, I mean like not instantly there, and they have the [expletive] cheek totell me off and walk out without tipping. That’s it – I’ve had it with their boring stories andtheir perfect daughter, coffee dregs for them! [Paula, Part-time restaurant worker, aged 32, 5years experience]

In this respect, acts of sabotage motivated by customer-oriented revenge can be viewed

as considered, reflexive acts, deliberately undertaken as reprisals (see Tonglet, 2002; Full-

erton & Punj, 2004).

Negative customer–worker interactions appeared to affect workers’ self-esteem and

trigger acts of sabotage designed to enhance the employee’s feelings of self-esteem. In

this regard, such actions can be viewed as logical reactions by workers to social factors,

and in some senses, retaliation (see Bies et al., 1997). Particularly prevalent among custo-

mer-contact employees, this rationale for service sabotage was common among hospitality

workers who argued that service employees were generally negatively viewed by the

public. A restaurant worker argues:

You have to serve the public to know what they think of service workers. We’re dirt beneaththeir feet. We’re robots to respond to their finger clicks. We’re scum. I wouldn’t treat a dog,the way they treat us – we’re nothing. Really, nothing. [Joanna, Part-time restaurant worker,aged 23, 3 years experience]

The Service Industries Journal 2035

This view was widely shared by customer-contact employees who often contended that

the public’s negative view of hospitality workers stemmed from a class system previously

dominated by master–servant or aristocracy–proletariat relations.

Whatever the reasons for the perception that hospitality workers were viewed nega-

tively, employees were conscious of this view and felt that customers treated them

poorly. The subsequent feelings of reduced self-esteem were actively countered by

service workers who used service sabotage as a means of boosting their lowered self-

esteem. Two hotel workers note:

Well, it gives you a buzz. You sorta walk away feeling twenty feet tall! You feel better aboutthe whole day – something that lifts you – something to tell the old man. Yeah, you just feelbetter! [Edwina, Part-time restaurant worker, aged 43, day time restaurant worker, 14 yearsexperience]Some days it can really get you down. The customers are rude, the work boring – it’s a grind.Then you pull one off (an incident of service sabotage) and it brightens up the day – suddenlyit’s not all bad – you get to see the fun side of things. [Fred, Full-time bartender, aged 23, 3years experience]

This process of deliberate sabotage was reasoned to be motivated by dual aims. First,

self-esteem was enhanced, while second, employees argued that service sabotage consti-

tuted a mechanism with which relations between customers and employees were equalized

(or at least made less unequal). A restaurant worker explains:

You walk back to your station thinking ‘yeah, so that showed you’, ‘I’m just as clever asyou’’, ‘just as good as you’. You need to do that; otherwise they’d grind you down. Youneed to score one every now and again just to remind yourself that you’re just as good asthey are. [Michael, Part-time restaurant worker, aged 24, 6 years experience]

In these regards, service sabotage was motivated by a desire to address perceived

social inequalities driven by the contemporary pressures of service/customer orientation

(Knights et al., 1994; Sturdy, 1998).

Stress-related motives

The third category of motive for service sabotage centres on desires to relieve stress or to

overcome too little stimulation/stress. One-fifth of the cases of service sabotage were

directly attributable to too much or too little workplace stress.

Many employees argued that their need to reduce stress constituted their motive for

deliberate acts of service sabotage. For customer-contact employees and behind-the-

scenes workers, conscious acts of overt and covert sabotage were argued to relieve the

stress and pressure which workers claimed to be intrinsic to their jobs. In this sense,

service sabotage motivated by stress relief can be viewed as, at least in part, constructive

(see Warren, 2003). Customer-contact workers universally contended that prolonged

contact with customers led to considerable stress. One comments:

This job means that you’re constantly on show. You don’t get a moment’s peace. You’realways there. Always supposed to be happy, smiling and helpful. Hour after hour that’s,that’s really tough. There’s always somebody asking for this or that. You can bet that justwhen you’re busiest, one table will want something extra or ‘would you mind this’ or‘would you mind that’. Stressful ’aint the word! [Marty, Full-time restaurant worker, aged24, 4 years experience]

The contact with customers when combined with time-pressured service was viewed

by many employees as the source of stress which led to the need to relieve their psycho-

logical and emotional tensions via acts of service sabotage designed to lighten their mood

2036 L. C. Harris and E. Ogbonna

or to serve as an outlet for their mental strain. Typically, acts motivated by a need to

relieve stress were designed to be humorous (at least from the workers’ perspective):

You’ve got to break it up or you’d get ground down by it all. Whether it’s playing soccer withsomebody’s coffee mints or pulling faces behind a customer’s back or menu tennis (a gamewherein two restaurant workers play tennis using menus as bats and wrapped butter portionsas balls), you need to lighten the mood – you’ve got to really laugh once in a while. [Mike,Part-time restaurant worker, aged 19, 4 months’ experience]Yeah, it’s stressful. It’s not difficult like academic stuff but stressful in a different way.You’ve got tables getting annoyed, chefs getting bolshie, managers getting arsey – stressful.If you didn’t have a laugh you’d quit. So, we play jokes on each other. . .my favorite is pre-tending to be Romanian (affecting accent) – you know – ‘vot can I do vor you’ – a goodlaugh. [Mark, Full-time bartender, aged 32, 8 years experience]

However, acts of sabotage motivated by stress-relief were not limited to customer-

contact employees. Other workers whose jobs were time pressured also found service

sabotage a useful means to relieve tension. A chef comments:

In every kitchen I’ve ever worked in the guys have their fun. Steak soccer, prawnless prawncocktails, mad specials. That’s just part of kitchen work – all chefs are mad – you’ve got tobe, working these hours for this money! [Dick, Chef, aged 42, 17 years experience]

Interestingly, for non-customer-contact employees, while the acts of sabotage under-

taken were also designed to be humorous, the seriousness or gravity of the sabotage

acts was typically greater than for customer-contact employees. That is, the service sabo-

tage behaviours of non-customer-contact employees motivated by a need to relieve tension

were typically far more ‘deviant’ or of greater seriousness than their customer-contact

counterparts. While this may be partly explained by the covert nature of their behaviours,

it is somewhat surprising that indirect pressures of customer service led to lesser responses

than direct contact.

While too much stress was clearly linked to sabotage actions, the lack of stimulation

was also linked. That is, some informants argued that their deliberate acts of service

sabotage were motivated by a desire to relieve tedium and generate, comparatively,

short-term excitement and stimulation. This mirrors the theory of Spector (1997)

which suggests that workers will react in antisocial ways when faced with repeated frus-

trating factors. Interviews revealed that this motive was described in relation to that

which Harris and Ogbonna (2002) would label as both ‘intermittent’ and ‘routinized’

service sabotage. Intermittent service sabotage refers to actions by employees that are

sporadic and closer to lay conceptions of sabotage. In such cases, workers intentionally

disrupt, otherwise functional, service encounters to relieve feelings of boredom. Two

employees contend:

I remember once it was so dead – two hours and we didn’t see a soul. You don’t know howlong two hours of polishing glasses can be! So when this posh bloke came in with his wife, westarted putting on yokel accents and pretending we couldn’t understand him! It was so, funny![Fred, Full-time bartender, aged 23, 3 years experience]Just now and then you get it really stone-cold dead. Nada [nothing] for hours. Boring, boring,boring. It’s better when somebody else is working with you. When I worked with Mike, thisguest came in asking for directions so Mike directed him in completely the wrong directionsand kept forgetting when he said – how he kept a straight face, I’ll never know! [Arthur, Part-time bartender, aged 32, 6 years experience]

In this sense, service sabotage can be viewed as a response to relatively long periods of

unexpected slow service often leading to a change in the tasks undertaken to repetitive or

monotonous work (such as cleaning or stock-taking). However, service sabotage can also

be viewed as an outlet for worker creativity when faced with dull or tedious work.

The Service Industries Journal 2037

This motive for service sabotage was also found to be routinized in the behavioural

norms of some employees and deeply engrained into some contexts. Many of what infor-

mants labelled ‘less-skilled jobs’ within the hospitality sector (those which required no train-

ing or social skills) were described by informants as being highly repetitive and intrinsically

unrewarding. Consequently, it emerged that for some employees in particularly unfulfilling

roles, successive ‘generations’ of employees had developed behavioural norms that broke up

the tedium of their jobs often by negatively affecting standards of service.

It’s been going on since well before my time. Simon says that they were at it when he startedand he’s been here twenty years, off and on. Now and again, you’ve got to have a laugh –you’ve got to pull one off that gets you smiling. [Rhiannon, Full-time housekeeper worker,aged 26, 3 years experience]Let’s face it cleaning rooms is boring as [expletive] – every room is the same and you do thesame things. Half the time you switch off completely and just do it. It get’s so boring that mostof us mess around and play trick on guests. Nothing serious like – no stealing but funny thingslike moving book-marks, changing drawers, messing with the air-con. Just little bits of fun.[Chrissie, Full-time housekeeper worker, aged 42, 15 years experience]

In such cases, the detailed management prescriptions, rules and regulations that con-

strained the behaviours of employees make work so monotonous that the only options

available to those seeking difference in their work were to sabotage service to inject

some excitement into their working days.

Group-related motives

As much service work involves team or groups of employees, unsurprisingly, 18% of the

cases of service sabotage discussed were related to group or time status and pressures.

In their qualitative study, Harris and Ogbonna (2002) argue that acts of service sabo-

tage are linked to status within groups. Subsequently, using a survey methodology, Harris

and Ogbonna (2006) find that service sabotage is linked with higher levels of team spirit.

Similarly, in the current study, evidence was found that acts of service sabotage occurred

which were motivated by a desire to enhance the status of individuals. Indeed, in all of the

organizations studied, evidence was found indicating that past acts of intra-outlet service

sabotage had passed into firm legend, with the perpetrators often depicted as heroes. Two

examples included:

Before my time, one guy actually marched up to group of German guests and told them to‘[expletive] the [expletive] off’. They didn’t understand a word and he kept smiling andtelling them he ‘couldn’t give [expletive]’ and they were smiling back – brilliant. Imaginehaving the spunk to do that with a smile on your face! [Edwina, Part-time restaurantworker, aged 43, 14 years experience]You do hear some stories that people swear are true. Like the time the chefs urinated in thesoup at a wedding because the bride’s mother had complained that the menu was ‘too provin-cial’ and ‘lacked originality’. I don’t know if it’s true. I wasn’t here then but how cool is that?[John, Full-time kitchen worker, aged 26, 5 years experience]

Discussions revealed that public acts of sabotage, witnessed by co-workers, were

indeed viewed as sources of intra-group status. One restaurant worker explains:

I was there when Burt (a co-worker) ‘accidentally’ spilt gravy down a guys jacket and thenwalked away grinning while the guy didn’t even notice. Classic. A real winner – he got adrink from all of us that night! [Fred, Full-time bartender, aged 23, 3 years experience]

In this sense, acts of public sabotage were considered mechanisms to enhance individ-

uals’ rank within the group. This is consistent with Robinson and O’Leary-Kelly (1998) who

conclude that groups exert pressures on workers to conform and thus gain peer-evaluated

2038 L. C. Harris and E. Ogbonna

status. Covert acts of sabotage were also sources of group status. A member of housekeeping

claims:

The waiters are always bragging about this or that – we keep them quiet with some of ourstories, I can tell, you. We just get our own back more quietly. [Lilly, Full-time housekeeper,aged 42, 9 years experience]

Thus, while public acts were viewed as immediate sources of group status, covert acts

were also viewed as status-enhancing, depending on the ability of saboteurs to retell the

story (preferably, humorously).

While some acts of service sabotage were motivated by a need to enhance group status,

other acts of service sabotage were driven by group pressure. This is concordant with the

study of Robinson and O’Leary-Kelly (1998) who find that groups exert a considerable

influence over the antisocial actions of employees at work. Primarily expressed by

newer members of staff, casual or part-time employees, group pressure motives for acts

of sabotage were relatively common. Two newly hired restaurant workers explain:

You’ve got to learn the tricks of the trade – the first few shifts I was running around to getthings done and they said ‘use your brains’, ‘slow down’, ‘think of the hours’ and then youtwig it and slow it right the way down. [George, Part-time restaurant worker, aged 19, 3months experience]When you start you don’t really know what you’re doing – the others tell you what’s what.What table to be good to ‘cos they tip, which ones not to worry too much about’ cos they nevertip, that sort of thing. [Lloyd, Part-time restaurant worker, aged 20, 9 months experience]

As such, acts of service sabotage, motivated by a need to conform to group wishes,

appear to serve a number of functions. First, participating in such acts was often viewed

as a rite of initiation into the inner-circle of the group. A bar worker explains:

Once they’ve pulled one off (a public sabotage), then they’re like one of us – not stuck uptheir own [expletive]. Then they’re one of the guys. [Mark, Full-time bartender, aged 32, 8years experience]

Second, the pressuring of employees to adhere to the group norm can be viewed as a

means of acculturization. In this sense, acts of service sabotage are presented as ‘the way

we do things here’. Third, more experienced employees view such acts as their means of

maintaining the status quo and also a way in which newer employees can be taught how to

gain from such behaviours. A long-serving hotel worker comments:

It’s not about getting them into trouble, it’s about teaching them the job. Getting them torealize that slowing down means we all get paid more. You’re teaching them to cope withthe realities of the job – not the job that’s in the manual. The manual doesn’t mention rudecustomers, the stress, the pressure – we teach them to let off steam – have some fun – gettheir own back. The real world - not some college trip. [Victor, Full-time restaurantworker, aged 35, 15 years experience]

While exerting peer pressure to motivate that acts of service sabotage can be viewed as

dysfunctional from the perspective of management, many front-line employees argue that

encouraging others in service sabotage is paternalistic, in that such acts are often beneficial

to the employee. As such, it can be argued that service sabotage can become inherent to

certain subcultures and perpetuated in the same ways as other cultural attributes (see

Boye & Jones, 1997).

Employee/firm-oriented motives

The final motive for service sabotage was by far the rarest rationale and centred on delib-

erate sabotage either intended to affect a particular co-worker or designed to harm the

The Service Industries Journal 2039

management or firm itself. Such incidents accounted for just fewer than 13% of incidents

of service sabotage (although many episodes were repeated incidents targeted at the same

individuals). While in some regards this motive can be viewed as politically oriented, the

main focus of behaviours was negatively to affect others. A restaurant worker explains:

I would call it a personality clash. I wouldn’t lift a finger if she we’re on fire. She’s an evil little[expletive] that one. . .mind you, every order of drinks she gets is at least five mins late![Lloyd, Part-time restaurant worker, aged 20, 9 months experience]

The reasons for such motives were largely personal and context-specific but typically

revolved around a perceived past misdemeanour or personal slight. One reception staff and

a chef comment:

When I started here, she went out of her way to make my life difficult – got me to do all sortsof things that she was supposed to do. That’s not right. That’s just wrong – you don’t takeadvantage of newbies. It’s like kicking puppies – you just don’t do it. [Queenie, Receptiondesk worker, aged 35, 2 years experience]She actually said (affecting upper-class accent) ‘that’s not the way we present that aroundhere’! For God’s sake – like she’s a qualified chef – [expletive] the [expletive] off andserve it! No, her’s (her orders for service) go right to the bottom of the list. [Kevin, Full-time chef, aged 37, 18 years experience]

Whatever the original cause for such behaviours, both saboteurs and victims agreed

that the occurrence of such activities, while petty, was often significant enough that the

victims would change their working times to avoid the perpetrator, request transfers to

alternative jobs or even leave the outlet. One chef (the saboteur) and one restaurant

worker (the victim) state:

Yes, it is personal. I don’t like her. Yes, I make her life difficult. She’s a right bitch and we’dbe much better off without her. [Kevin, Full-time chef, aged 37, 18 years industrial experi-ence, 4 months within the firm]I’m moving on – the new Head Chef here is a right pain. I don’t like him and he doesn’t likeme. You can’t work with a kitchen when the kitchen doesn’t want to work with you. My tipshave halved since he got here – food is late – service is sloppy. I’m much better off going upthe road (where she was previously employed) – I’ll make more money there. [Karen, Part-time restaurant worker, aged 39, 11 years experience]

In this case, the relatively minor sabotage actions by an employee were sufficient to

bully and harass a co-worker to the extent that she felt obliged to leave the outlet. Interest-

ingly, all of the cases of employee-oriented service sabotage uncovered, while noticed by

victims, were not reported to super-ordinates as the actions were either seen as so petty as

to be insufficiently important or reporting such acts was viewed to be against the unwritten

co-worker solidarity code.

Other acts of sabotage were driven by the desires of workers to disrupt service to harm

the employing organization or the representative of the firm in the form of outlet managers.

In some regards, service sabotage enacted with this motive can be viewed as a reaction to

perceived injustice (see Aquino, Lewis, & Bradfield, 1999). Sabotage actions motivated by

a desire negatively to affect the firm were, most commonly, covert in nature. A restaurant

worker comments:

I hate this [expletive] place. It’s about money, money, money. They don’t give a fig about us.We’re cattle to be prodded and used. Well, this steer still has some fight – I just get my ownback when there’s nobody about – think of me as the French Resistance! [Michael, Part-timerestaurant worker, aged 24, 6 years experience]

Similarly, those focused on management were also typically covert and most often tar-

geted toward a particular manager. A reception desk worker explains:

2040 L. C. Harris and E. Ogbonna

He changed my holidays – I always take the May Day weekend off with my family – a big gettogether. He just said ‘no’ and that was that. Well, sorry but ends any cooperation for me. Youwait until next August he’s going to have a right nightmare when the coaches turn up – we’reover booked (a fairly common practice based on the fact that some bookings fail to materia-lize) and I know the operators (the tour operators) – they’ll all come and he’s on his own –I’m off to the Algarve! [Marge, Full-time reception desk worker, aged 47, 11 yearsexperience]

The reasons why employees felt motivated to behave in this manner were most often

historical in nature. That is, past actions by particular managers or Head Office employees

were interpreted by workers as unjust. Although many such instances related to the sub-

sequent saboteur, organizational/management-oriented motives for sabotage also arose

when unfairness occurred to respected co-workers. Such inequities were considered by

workers as grounds for reaction, and in this sense, resistance. Two workers comment:

He got him. No doubts – he worked five extra hours for zip. Fair cop. He won that one – buthe get’s it from us at every opportunity we get, we drop the [swear word] in it and walk away -all innocent like. [Jonathan, Part-time restaurant worker, aged 20, 3 years experience]She shafted Richard. We all saw it. Dropped him right in the [expletive] and vamoosed -leaving him to clear up her balls-up. Not fair. We all rallied round – she’s the number onetarget for us – can’t be trusted. [Emily, Full-time hotel worker, aged 27, 6 years experience]

In this regard, certain acts of sabotage can be viewed as front-line workers’ reflexive

resistance responses to perceived organizational injustices.

Conclusions and implications

Our central argument in this paper is that existing conceptualizations have commonly paid

insufficient attention to the agency of front-line customer service employees. Specifically,

research into sabotage behaviours is either dominated by studies of manufacturing organ-

izations or focused on the antecedents and consequences of such behaviours rather than the

motives for engaging in sabotage in service organizations. Our analysis of interview data

revealed five motives for deliberate employee sabotage. These included financial, custo-

mer-driven, stress-related, group reasons, and employee–firm-oriented motives. What

follows is a discussion of the implications of these findings for theory and practice.

The findings of this study suggest that various motives for service sabotage exist and

that each motive has varying implications for the employee and indeed for the firm and the

customer. In contrast to the small number of earlier studies which commonly portrayed

employee service sabotage as an atypical or as an extreme form of employee behaviour,

the findings of this study indicate that the motives for the varying forms of service sabo-

tage range from the benign, to the recalcitrant, to the, significantly less common, mali-

cious. This indicates the necessity for studies of employee work-based behaviours to

incorporate a more complex but more comprehensive conceptualization of employee

agency, especially in relation to rationales for sabotage and resistance-related activities.

In this sense, this research constitutes empirical evidence that highlights the important

warning that studies of organizational phenomena should be wary of data-reduction tech-

niques or the over-simplification of employee dynamics that reduce complex and dynamic

phenomena in search of concise or narrow theoretical explanations. While most forms of

data analysis are inherently reductionist, the limitations, assumptions and caveats that are

commonly ascribed (most often in the closing paragraph) are sometimes overlooked,

ignored or worryingly disregarded. In the case of service sabotage, it may be argued

that an implicit or tacit assumption in many aspects of the literature is that employee sabo-

tage is simply an irrational response to exploitation that is designed to resist control.

The Service Industries Journal 2041

However, the findings of the current study clearly illustrate that employees justify their

sabotage behaviour in a much wider variety of ways, many of which are personally or pro-

fessionally instrumental.

The above discussion leads to another interesting contribution which is related to the

study of the motives for idiosyncratic employee behaviours. The current study constitutes

a tentative attempt to explore at least one of the plethora of varying forms of employee

subjectivities. In this regard, this study contributes to the growing body of commentaries

that endorse the need to explore and conceptualize employee subjectivities in ways and

terms that go beyond the all-embracing reductionist conceptions of control and resistance

(see Jermier et al., 1995; Fleming & Spicer, 2003; Friedman, 1990; Storey, 1983).

Although the concepts of control and resistance have advanced our understanding of con-

temporary employer–employee relationships (see Gabriel, 1999; Jermier, 1998), the

current study highlights the fact that these concepts are constrained in their ability to

embrace and incorporate front-line workers as proactive (albeit) unequal participants in

shaping their individual and collective subjectivities. This leads on to an interesting

empirical contribution of the study. While much research portrays shop-floor or front-

line workers as reactive victims of management oppression and exploitation (see

O’Doherty & Willmott, 2000), the current study indicates that this may be an over-simpli-

fication of a complex relationship wherein the subjectivities of reactive and reflexive

actors vary. Although it is possible that the actions of management are considered reac-

tions to the misbehaviours of naturally recalcitrant and resisting employees, a more plaus-

ible explanation can be found in the range of motives for service sabotage which

demonstrate that front-line workers reflect on the actions of management and respond

(albeit in a constrained way) and proactively act for financial, personal, group, ego

gain. This suggests that theories that assert that management–worker relationships are

characterized by a suppression of workers’ individual and collective identities (for

example, Casey, 1999; Fleming & Spicer, 2003) should be extended to incorporate the

possibility that such oppression may lead to the abused becoming an abuser in that

employees proactively misbehave (sabotage) not only as a form of self-defence but also

as a pre-emptive strike.

The next contribution of this study centres on the prevalence of service sabotage

uncovered and the multiple motivations for such employee actions. In short, these beha-

viours were common among those interviewed and in many cases were considered to

be part of the informal work norms and in this sense a routine, albeit frequently clandestine

part of their work. While contemporary researchers commonly acknowledge the existence

of sabotage and resistance activities in manufacturing sectors (see Ackroyd & Thompson,

1999), an explicit recognition of such behaviours in the services sector is relatively rare

(see Analoui, 1995; Harris & Ogbonna, 2002). In this regard, the current study can be

viewed as a response to the growing number of theorists who argue that organizational

phenomena well established in studies of manufacturing need to be explored in services

contexts in order to develop a more inclusive and informed understanding of their

dynamics (e.g. Harley et al., 2007). In the current study, a number of underlying

motives were found for service sabotage that appear highly context-specific and idiosyn-

cratic to services contexts where interaction between front-line employees and consumers

is frequent, often prolonged and highly visible.

The current study also contributes to theory building in broader employment studies.

Our findings suggest that studies of employment relationships could benefit from delving

into the rich, but relatively overlooked, literature which deals with issues such as employee

sabotage, and in particular the dynamics of employee behaviours during customer service

2042 L. C. Harris and E. Ogbonna

or in services contexts. Indeed, although the importance of customers and customer service

is often alluded to in studies of industrial relations (see Heery, 1993), there is a surprising

lacuna of both empirical and theoretical evaluations of these phenomena and this context

in employment research. An incorporation of research into the relationships between

organizations, employees and customers is important and arguably critical to developing

comprehensive and inclusive theories of employment relationships. Indeed, as the service

economies of Western countries continue to expand, it is logical to contend that this need

grows ever more important.

The findings and contributions of this study are constrained by a number of limitations.

In particular, three issues appear worthy of consideration. First, the focus of the current

study has been on how front-line workers in service settings explain or justify their sabo-

tage behaviours. As such the focus has been on motives and not on the ways in which

service employees sabotage or misbehave. Second, while this study implicitly discusses

how individual employees believe that their motives for sabotage emerge, the full range

of drivers are not discussed or indeed explored. Finally, while the focus of this study

has been on services, and although the motives that emerged appear context-specific, it

is argued that the findings are theoretically generalizable.

Although the current study generates interesting insights to the phenomenon of service

sabotage, further research would be beneficial. In particular, three avenues for future

research appear especially worthy of consideration. First, research is required to explore

and describe the links between individual motives for service sabotage and the form of

such behaviours. While the current study explores these motives, a descriptive research

design, possibly utilizing survey methods, could model the linkages between motives

and the form of action taken. Such an approach could either focus on individual

motives in-depth or adopt a broader approach and study the varying motives for multiple

forms of sabotage. Second, replicative studies of service sabotage are needed to explore

how (if at all) the idiosyncrasies of context affect sabotage motives. The focus of the

current study has been the hospitality sector. Future studies could explore and model

employee sabotage motives and actions in a wider range of service contexts. In particular,

it seems logical to predict that contextual factors will affect both motive and form of sabo-

tage in contexts where the nature of employee–customer contact varies; for example, face-

to-face service versus audio communication only in call centres or contexts characterized

by relational rather than transactional exchange. Finally, future research should explore

further the drivers of service sabotage. Such an approach could generate useful insights

into how motives for service sabotage develop, and (crucially for practitioners) how

these factors can be managed to reduce potentially harmful or destructive acts of

service sabotage.

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