This study empirically examined the effects of customer incivility on organizational silence, job performance, and organizational citizenship behavior(OCB) among airline cabin crew members, and further investigated the moderating role of gender. Groun...
This study empirically examined the effects of customer incivility on organizational silence, job performance, and organizational citizenship behavior(OCB) among airline cabin crew members, and further investigated the moderating role of gender. Grounded in the Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory (Hobfoll, 1989), this study explored how the psychological resource depletion caused by customer incivility influences employees’ silence behavior and overall organizational outcomes. Survey data were collected from cabin crew members working for major domestic airlines in Korea. Based on the valid responses, the study employed Confirmatory Factor Analysis(CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling(SEM) to test the research hypotheses. In addition, a multi-group analysis was conducted to examine gender differences in the structural relationships among the key variables. The results revealed that customer incivility had significant positive effects on both acquiescent silence and defensive silence. Among the two dimensions of silence, acquiescent silence was found to have negative effects on both job performance and OCB, indicating that employees who perceive communication as meaningless tend to lose work efficiency and voluntary cooperative behavior simultaneously. In contrast, defensive silence showed a significant negative effect on OCB rather than on job performance, suggesting that employees who avoid interpersonal conflict or negative evaluation tend to suppress discretionary helping and cooperative actions. Furthermore, the moderating effects of gender were partially significant. Specifically, the positive relationship between customer incivility and defensive silence was stronger among female employees than among male employees, and the negative impact of defensive silence on OCB was also greater for women. These findings imply that female cabin crew members, who are generally more emotionally sensitive and relationship-oriented, are more likely to perceive customer incivility as a psychological threat and to adopt silence as a resource-preserving coping strategy. Overall, the findings highlight that customer incivility is not merely an individual emotional issue but a critical organizational factor that undermines communication and performance systems. Theoretically, this study extends the scope of service organization behavior research by integrating the frameworks of customer incivility and organizational silence. Practically, it provides foundational insights for improving