Incivility in the Contemporary Service Banking Context

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Introduction

The salutary role of civility (e.g., kindness, empathy, and moral behaviour) in service interactions and its positive outcomes is well-documented in the literature (e.g., Aránega et al., 2023). These positive outcomes create a virtuous cycle, leading to improved customer experience and organizational performance. However, incivility represents the antithesis of such actions. Incivility refers to behaviors that breach the generally accepted standards of conduct in service interactions (Boukis et al., 2023). Incivility occurs in various ways including verbal rudeness, shoplifting, vandalism, smoking cigarettes in prohibited areas, consumption of illegal narcotics, arrogance, hubris, and, even, rage/violence (Gong and Wang, 2023). Broad definitions of incivility encompass actions such as involvement in corruption, pollution, unsustainable use of natural resources, or the exploitation of workers/vulnerable people (e.g., children) and violations of their rights (Cuervo-Cazurra et al., 2021). Thus, customer/employee incivility is too important to ignore (Chaudhuri et al., 2023) and firms’, including banks’, incivility is a “hot” topic as it can damage their reputation (Souiden et al., 2022). 

Incivility poses challenges as we are overwhelmed with news reports and stories about problematic customers (Fennel et al., 2023) and difficult professional service employees (Woodside and Mir-Bernal, 2020). This situation is likely to be exacerbated when using online services and artificial intelligence. Bacile (2020) reports that online incivility (e.g., rude offensive behaviours and insulting comments) can lead to a weakened service climate and experiential value. Likewise, the evolving usage of artificial intelligence and the development of well-trained algorithms and programs are likely to efficiently assist managers in identifying and offsetting uncivil comments (Wilms et al., 2024). Consequently, the automated identification of incivility, such as hate speech, toxicity, and offensive language, has become a significant focus in machine learning research (e.g., Zampieri et al., 2023). Harris and Daunt (2013, p. 289) conclude that “poorly behaving customers [or employees or firms] are sufficiently endemic that the consequences of their behavior are both direct and indirect and therefore must be considered as a management issue that requires strategic and tactical attention.” Nonetheless, despite such calls, prior literature underlines the regrettable conclusion that a compelling need remains for research into customer and employee incivility (Istanbulluoglu and Harris, 2024), particularly in the context of banks. 

In this special issue, authors are encouraged to explore the various aspects of incivility, its causes and consequences in relation to the banking service context. They are also invited to consider the contemporary technological business environment, where digital and AI-assisted banking services are increasingly pervasive.

List of Topic Areas

This special issue welcomes conceptual and empirical papers, qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods. Papers are sought exploring topics such as (but not limited to): 

• The role of individual characteristics (e.g., personality traits) in contributing to incivility.
• Theories (e.g., anger management), that may explain consumers’ or employees’ incivility.
• Organizational factors that encourage or impede incivility in customer and employee interactions.
• The influence of customer and employee diversity on perceptions and enactment of incivility.
• The role of leadership in addressing incivility.
• Cultural variations in the expression and perception of incivility.
• The role of incivility in technology-mediated banking interactions.
• Drivers and inhibitors of customers’ and/or employees’ and/or banks’ incivility.
• Direct and indirect consequences of customers’ and/or employees’ and/or banks’ incivility.
• Employees’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses toward customers’ and/or banks’ incivility and/or the reverse.
• Systematic literature reviews and/or bibliometric studies on customers’/employees’/banks’ incivility.
• The role of technology in exacerbating or offsetting incivility.
• Complaining behavior and incivility.
• Antecedents and/or consequences of any perceived bad reputation/hypocrisy of banks (among customers and/or employees).

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”. 
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 28/03/2025 
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 28/11/2025

Guest Editors

Walid Chaouali, Department of Management, Faculty of Law, Economics and Management of Jendouba, University of Jendouba, Jendouba, Tunisia, chaouali.walid@yahoo.fr  
Nizar Souiden, Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business Administration, Laval University, Quebec, Canada, nizar.souiden@mrk.ulaval.ca 

References

Aránega, A.Y., Montesinos, C.G., and del Val Núñez, M.T. (2023), “Towards an entrepreneurial leadership based on kindness in a digital age”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 159, 113747. 
Bacile, T.J. (2020), “Digital customer service and customer-to-customer interactions: investigating the effect of online incivility on customer perceived service climate”, Journal of Service Management, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 441-464. 
Boukis, A., Koritos, C., Papastathopoulos, A., and Buhalis, D. (2023), “Customer incivility as an identity threat for frontline employees: The mitigating role of organizational rewards”, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 100, 103555. 
Chaudhuri, R., Apoorva, A., Vrontis, D., Siachou, E., and Trichina, E. (2023), “How customer incivility affects service-sector employees: A systematic literature review and a bibliometric analysis”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 164, 114011. 
Cuervo-Cazurra, A., Dieleman, M., Hirsch, P., Rodrigues, S. B., and Zyglidopoulos, S. (2021), “Multinationals’ incivility”, Journal of World Business, Vol. 56, 101244. 
Fennell, P.B., Lorenz, M.P., Lindsey Hall, K.K., & Andzulis, J.M. (2023), “Not my circus, not my monkeys? Frontline employee perceptions of customer deviant behaviors and service firms’ guardianship policies”, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 422-440. 
Gong, T., and Wang, C.-Y. (2023), “Unpacking the relationship between customer citizenship behavior and dysfunctional customer behavior: The role of customer moral credits and entitlement”, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 110-137. 
Harris, L. C., and Daunt, K. L. (2013), “Managing customer incivility: Challenges and strategies”, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 281-293. 
Istanbulluoglu, D. and Harris, L.C. (2024), “Forms of falsified online reviews: the good, the bad, and the downright ugly”, European Journal of Marketing. Vol. 58 No. 2, pp. 497-518. 
Souiden, N., Chaouali, W., Aldás-Manzano, J., and Jamali, D. (2022), “Blame and culpability in explaining changes in perceptions of corporate social responsibility and credibility”, Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 363-385. 
Wilms, L., Gerl, K., Stoll, A., and Ziegele, M. (2024), “Technology acceptance and transparency demands for automated detection of toxic language – Interviews with moderators of public online discussion fora”, Human-Computer Interaction. DOI 10.1080/07370024.2024.2307610 
Woodside, A. G., and Mir-Bernal, P. (2020), “Ultimate broadening of the concept of marketing: B-to-O-to-C training service professionals not to inadvertently kill their clients”, Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 283-291. 
Zampieri, M., Ranasinghe, T., Sarkar, D., and Ororbia, A. (2023), “Offensive language identification with multi-task learning”, Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, Vol. 60, pp. 613-630.