Purpose: Drawing from self-regulation theories, this study aims to present a model linking customer mistreatment to hotel employees’ displaced workplace deviance via self-regulatory depletion, with disposition-based mindfulness as a first‐stage moderator.Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a multisource, multiwave investigation with 245 focal–coworker dyads at 14 full-service hotels in southern China. Descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis were performed.Findings: The results demonstrated the mediating role of self-regulatory depletion in provoking hotel employees’ displaced deviant reactions to customer mistreatment. Additionally, employees with high trait mindfulness are less vulnerable to self-regulatory depletion and, thus, less likely to exhibit displaced workplace deviance.Practical implications: This study enables hospitality administrators to understand that organizations and their employees, whether directly mistreated by customers, are potential victims of such negative events. Hospitality organizations should enhance mindfulness-based interventions and provide more humane care for employees to maintain their self-regulatory abilities, thereby reducing displaced workplace deviance.Originality/value: First, in contrast to studies focusing primarily on internal factors that trigger employees’ deviant responses, the research suggests that mistreatment by external customers is a potentially meaningful yet largely unexamined antecedent of workplace deviance. Second, this study moves beyond “self-gain” explanations, suggesting that employees display deviance not because of a malicious intent to harm the organization or its members but because they are incapable of controlling their undesirable behaviors. Third, the research highlights how mindfulness mitigates customer mistreatment and displaced workplace deviance relationships.

Based on the case of Gaoshanliushui in China, our research empirically examines the mediating effect of tourists’ flow experience on the relationship between perceived placeness and satisfaction as well as their perceived authenticity from the perspective of existential authenticity in the ethnic tourism context. Moreover, we present a moderated mediation model and postulate the role that tourists’ cultural intelligence plays in improving satisfaction and perceived authenticity. We review the way it links perceived placeness to outcomes through the flow experience. The theoretical model and hypotheses were empirically tested using 509 questionnaires collected in July 2019. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Purpose: This study aims to develop and test a moderated dual-mediator model of employees’ responses to customer mistreatment, positioning withdrawal and helping as two distinct alternatives to retaliation. Drawing on Belief in a Just World theory and the socio-functional perspective on self-conscious emotions, the authors examined how employees’ attributions of customers’ service promotion motives shape shame and guilt, driving psychological withdrawal and customer-directed organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Design/methodology/approach: Study 1 used a three-wave, time-lagged survey of 331 hotel employees. Study 2 used a scenario-based experiment with 316 participants. Findings: In Study 1, when employees attribute low service promotion motives to customers, customer mistreatment was more likely to evoke shame, which predicted psychological withdrawal. In contrast, when such motives are attributed as high, mistreatment is more likely to elicit guilt, subsequently promoting customer-directed OCBs. Study 2 provided further evidence that employees’ responses to customer mistreatment extend beyond “tit-for-tat” retaliation. Practical implications: Beyond hostility and retaliation, customer mistreatment can elicit either shame-driven withdrawal or guilt-induced helping. Attributional reframing and emotional regulation can mitigate withdrawal while fostering customer-directed OCBs. Originality/value: This study introduces attributed service promotion motives as a moderator, challenging the assumption that customer mistreatment is invariably perceived as malicious and explaining why employees may sometimes experience shame and guilt rather than hostility. It proposes an attribution-based mechanism through which these self-conscious emotions lead to distinct non-retaliatory responses. Finally, the study develops an integrative model that differentiates flight from helping as an alternative behavioral response and clarifies when and why employees transition following customer mistreatment.