Research report: What discourages frontline employees from engaging in customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior? the role of perceived organizational politics, work alienation, and conscientiousness

A two-phase survey of frontline employees in the hospitality sector found that perceived organizational politics was linked to greater work alienation and a lower tendency to engage in customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior, according to a 2026 study in Current Psychology . The results supported the researchers’ proposed sequence: frontline workers who perceived more politics in their organizations reported more alienation from work, while greater work alienation was associated with less customer-oriented citizenship behavior. Customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior, or CO-OCB, is the behavior examined in the study.

The research focused on frontline employees because their engagement in this activity is important for service organizations in delivering high-quality customer service and maintaining competitiveness. Although earlier work has commonly examined what promotes CO-OCB, the investigators instead focused on factors that might prevent frontline employees from participating in it. The researchers used conservation of resources theory to develop their hypotheses.

In their proposed model, perceived organizational politics was associated with work alienation, and work alienation was related to a reduced tendency to perform CO-OCB. Their statistical analysis also supported a moderation role for conscientiousness: the negative relationship between perceived organizational politics and CO-OCB was weaker among employees with higher levels of conscientiousness. In the study’s terminology, this meant that conscientiousness buffered the effect of perceived organizational politics on customer-oriented citizenship behavior.

The findings remained evident after the researchers controlled for two other factors that might help explain CO-OCB: prosocial motivation and perceived organizational support. The survey therefore supported the proposed relationships beyond those two commonly considered mechanisms. However, the evidence came from a nonexperimental survey of hospitality-sector employees rather than an intervention or experiment that manipulated workplace conditions.

The results establish reported associations consistent with the proposed model, but they do not by themselves demonstrate that perceived organizational politics caused work alienation or that alienation caused a reduction in CO-OCB. The scope is also limited to the frontline hospitality employees included in the study, so the findings should not automatically be extended to other industries or workplaces without further evidence.

Subject of Research: Survey evidence on perceived organizational politics, work alienation, conscientiousness and customer-oriented citizenship behavior among hospitality employees.

Article Title: What discourages frontline employees from engaging in customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior? the role of perceived organizational politics, work alienation, and conscientiousness

Article References: Wu, X., Xu, A. J., & Sun, H. (2026). What discourages frontline employees from engaging in customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior? the role of perceived organizational politics, work alienation, and conscientiousness. Current Psychology, 45(20), Article 1636. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-026-10160-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s12144-026-10160-2

Keywords: frontline employees, hospitality workers, customer service, organizational citizenship behavior, workplace politics, work alienation, conscientiousness, employee surveys, conservation of resources theory, discourages, frontline, employees