Specifically, the authors focus on one top-rated employee quality, responsiveness, and demonstrate its mediating role in tempering the undesirable aftereffects of crowding in the retail setting.

1. Título do Artigo: “EMPLOYEE INFLUENCE ON RETAIL CROWDING
EFFECTS:THE MEDIATING ROLE OF RESPONSIVENESS”
Autor(es): Hulya Bakirtas, Sevgin Eroglu
Apoio Realização
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2. 1
EMPLOYEE INFLUENCE ON RETAIL CROWDING EFFECTS:
THE MEDIATING ROLE OF RESPONSIVENESS
Abstract: Retail crowding is a major dilemma for management as it constantly strives to
increase patronage without subjecting customers to the negative outcomes of high perceived
crowding. The present study contends that one plausible way to achieve this objective is through
effective use of store employees. Specifically, the authors focus on one top-rated employee
quality, responsiveness, and demonstrate its mediating role in tempering the undesirable after-
effects of crowding in the retail setting. The proposed model empirically shows that employee
responsiveness can positively affect the satisfaction and patronage intentions of customers
subjected to high crowding conditions in the store. The results have implications for expanding
knowledge in crowding and service quality literature as well as in retail management.
Conceptual Background: Despite the evidence on the undesirable impact of crowding on
patronage behavior (Eroglu and Machleit 1990; Eroglu et al. 2005; Harrell et al. 1980; Hui and
Bateson 1991; Machleit et al. 1994; Machleit et al. 2000), ironically, a crowded store also
happens to be a very desirable state for retailers, one which typically culminates in high revenue
and business success. This creates a dilemma for management, namely, how to find ways to
increase the number of patrons without subjecting them to the experience of perceived
crowding? One plausible way to achieve this objective might be an effective use of the store
employees. In other words, to what extent can the quality of the store employees ameliorate the
undesirable consequences of perceived crowding? The findings in the services literature show
that, customer satisfaction is often influenced by the quality of the customer-contact personnel
interaction (Bitner et al.,1994; Huang, 2008). Similarly, the Social Facilitation Theory (Zajonc
1965) suggests that consumers’ positive perceptions regarding the store employees can
significantly affect their store attitudes and shopping behaviors (Tombs and McColl-Kennedy
2010). Is it possible that such dynamics could also work to diminish the negative outcomes of
undesirable atmospheric influences, such as crowding? This is an important question with
potentially significant research and managerial implications. It is also an issue which has not
been addressed in the marketing literature and, thus, constitutes the main thrust of our study.
Research Objective and Rationale: Specifically, we explore the potential impact of salesperson
responsiveness on consumers’ perceived crowding and shopping outcomes (namely, store
satisfaction and patronage intentions). We choose to focus our attention specifically on
salesperson responsiveness for three reasons. First, previous literature identifies employee
responsiveness among the most impactful determinants of customer satisfaction (Parasuraman
1991; O’Neill and Charters, 2000; Denburg and Kleiner, 1994). Second, previous work has
shown that the responsiveness of retail service providers contribute to consumer's assessment of
the retail environment itself (Bitner 1994; Klemz and Boshoff, 2001). The latter study identifies
the important and indirect role that responsiveness plays in affecting willingness-to-buy
primarily through its influence on consumers’ empathy perceptions. Finally, employee
responsiveness is a quality that can be instilled in the store personnel via training and incentive
programs, thus affording management the ability to control it. Research shows that, management
identifies employee responsiveness as the most valued salesperson quality also pointing out that
it is a highly controllable factor.
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3. 2
Conceptual Model: To examine this research question, we propose and test a model (Figure 1).
The underlying premise of the model is that the undesirable shopping outcomes of perceived
crowding experienced by store patrons can be mediated by desirable store employee qualities,
such as responsiveness. The model is rooted in the crowding literature in both marketing and
environmental psychology, and the literature on sales and services marketing. We hypothesize
that while perceived crowding has a strong impact on shopping outcomes in the form of
satisfaction and patronage intentions directly, this influence can be greatly impacted by the
mediating effect of responsive store employees. Specifically, the following hypotheses are
proposed and tested:
H1: Perceived crowding (PC) affects shopping satisfaction(S)
H2: Perceived crowding affects behavioral intentions (BI) toward the retailer
H3: Perceived crowding affects customer perception about salesperson’s responsiveness (PER)
H4a: Perceived salesperson responsiveness will mediate the relationship between perceived
crowding and shopping satisfaction.
H4b: Perceived salesperson responsiveness will mediate the relationship between perceived
crowding and behavioral intentions toward the retailer (BI).
Methodology: This is a field study whose data were collected at a large mall in Istanbul, Turkey,
via personal interviews of randomly intercepted apparel shoppers. A total of 507 usable surveys
were obtained with 68% of the sample comprised of women, 76% older than 25 years of age and
60% currently attending various levels of college. The study involved four latent variables:
Perceived Crowding (PC), Perceived Employee Responsiveness (PER), Behavioral Intentions
(BI) and Shopping Satisfaction (SS) as indicated in the proposed model. With the exception of
BI for which a 5-point scale was used (1=definitely would not to 5=definitely would), all the
other Perceived Crowding (PC) was adapted from Eroglu & Machleit (1994) and Li (2004) and
included “The store feels very spacious when I shop in the store”, “I felt unconfined when
shopping in the aisle of sections for product”, and “I felt unconfined when waiting near cash
register areas.” Perceived Employee Responsiveness (PER) measure was adapted from Hu and
Jasper (2006) and contained “Store employees quickly respond to customer requests” and “Store
employees would be willing to help customers”. Behavioral Intentions (BI) was adapted from
Jones and Reynolds (2006) with “I would recommend this store to others”, and “I am likely to
come back to shop in this store again”. Shopping Satisfaction (SS) was measured with two items
adapted from Babin et.al (1994), and Eroglu and Machleit (1990) and included “I got what I
expected to find at the store”, and “I accomplished just what I wanted to do on this shopping
experience at the store today.”
Analysis: Structural equation modeling (SEM) with a maximum likelihood (ML) was used to
analyze the data. The measurement model was constructed to estimate the relationships between
the four latent constructs and their indicators by a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) before the
structural models were tested. The results of the validity and reliability tests for the measurement
model indicate a good measurement fit. Composite construct reliability (CCR) of all the scales
was greater than 0.70 (Berthon et al., 2005). Cronbach  for each construct exceeded the
recommended critical point of 0.70 (Wang et al., 2011). The results supported internal
consistency of the scales. Average variance extracted for all the scales were greater than the
suggested critical value of 0.50 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). The factor loading items in the
latent constructs ranged from 0.70 to 0.92. The results supported convergent validity and
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4. 3
reliability of all of the scales. A test of discriminant validity was conducted with two models.
The first allowed the covariance while the second model constrained the covariance. The 2
values of the constrained and unconstrained models are then compared indicating the existence
of discriminant validity between all the model constructs ( ∆2
= 627.17, Δsd= 6, p= 0.05).
In order to perform the test of mediation an additional model was constructed. This
model focused on the direct (non-mediated) influences of perceived crowding (PC) on shopping
satisfaction (SS) and behavioral intentions (BI) by constraining the structural coefficients of the
mediation path to zero. The results indicated an acceptable fit (2
= 116.83; df =24; RMSEA=
.08; NNFI = .95; CFI = .97) and statistical significance for all the structural coefficients. PC was
found to be significantly, but inversely, related to SS and BI. In addition, PC was significantly
related to PER. Hence, the results render support for H1 and H2.
Next, the proposed model with the mediation path was tested. As hypothesized, the fit of
this model proved to be better than that of the alternative model with (2
= 82.20; df =22;
RMSEA= .07; NNFI = .96; CFI = .98) and a good fit (NFI = .96; GFI = .97; AGFI = .93).
Moreover, the incremental fit also emerged as significant as evidenced by the improvement in
the chi-square values from the non-mediated model (∆2
= 34.63, Δsd= 2, p= 0.05).
In summary, the analyses showed that the inclusion of mediation paths greatly improves
the original (non-mediated) model making the proposed model significantly better. This renders
support for H4a and H4b.
Discussion: Our study contributes to the existing knowledge in the area of environmental
influences on shopping outcomes in general and crowding, in particular. First, the positive
relationship between crowding and satisfaction is an interesting finding. While majority of
literature in retail crowding purports otherwise, there is evidence that such results are all U.S.-
based and that this relationship would probably not hold in cultures where people seek and enjoy
the close encounters of the marketplace. Actually, Kaya and Weber (2003) has demonstrated a
positive impact of crowding for Turkish consumers in their bi-country study on this topic.
(Eroglu, 1984). This study data being collected in Turkey (essentially a highly collectivist
culture), not surprisingly yielded a positive outcome for a high density shopping environment.
Secondly, our study demonstrates that customers’ perceptions regarding employee
responsiveness has a strong and positive impact on shopper outcomes. This is an important
finding given that crowding is a double-edged sword for management. The dilemma for
management is how to increase the number of patrons without subjecting them to the experience
of perceived crowding, if crowding has negative shopping consequences. In our study, even
when crowding was perceived as a positive stimulus, employee responsiveness still had a strong
direct and indirect impact on shopping outcomes. Employee responsiveness is a quality that is
under management control and one whose perceptions by the customer is more readily
established than, for example, reliability which is another top-rated (Parasuraman 1991)
employee quality, but one which takes an extended period of time to instill.
While our study extends knowledge in the area of crowding outcomes and ways to
counteract its negative outcomes, it also identifies a number of future research areas. Which
dimensions of responsiveness are likely to temper crowding effects in the retail environment?
Which spoken and “silent” (contextual) cues demonstrated by employees can convey
responsiveness? To what extent does the impact of responsiveness (and other potentially
influential employee characteristics such as empathy) vary on a continuum from low- to high-
service settings?
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5. 4
These questions highlight the possibility that under conditions of crowding the role of the
employee in mitigating the adverse effects can take on multiple forms. In addition to being
empathetic and helpful to customers who are trying to cope with high store density, the
employees can also help reduce the actual density in the store—for example, by monitoring store
traffic. Xia (2010) found that retail crowding consistently put a negative impact on browsing,
both functional and recreational. As a result the author recommended that during busy hours,
stores can ensure that additional employees are on the floor to help customers with specific needs
and reduce unnecessary functional browsing, with the hope that this will leave more space for
recreational browsers.
Using the Social Facilitiation Theory (Zajonc 1965), Tombs and McColl-Kennedy (2010)
showed that mere existence of others (employees or customers) in the service context has
significant impact on customer behaviors and outcomes in the service setting affecting various
outcomes from satisfaction to duration of stay.
From a managerial perspective, our findings bear at least two implications. First, retail
managers might be able to reduce (accentuate) the negative (positive) effects of crowding by
training their employees to be extra responsive at busy times. Responsiveness is found to be
among the top two employee qualities (along with reliability) which directly and significantly
influence customer satisfaction. It is also under the control of management to be instigated in
employees through training and various incentive programs. Furthermore, unlike reliability, it
does not require an extended period of time to be “tested” to be appreciated by customers, and,
therefore, can be easily and quickly implemented. Second, management can look at a number of
environmental design variables and atmospheric stimuli to support and enhance the employees’
efforts in mitigating the undesirable consequences of crowded stores. For example, fast tempo
and high volume music (Holbrook and Anand, 1990), hot colors such as orange, yellow and red
(Valdez and Mehrabian, 1994), and ambient scents such as citrus fragrances are all shown to
increase arousal and stimulation among customers. Since high density levels are also known to
increase arousal (Stokols, 1972), management might be cognizant of such effects and their
potential interaction with the employee behaviors and efforts.
Finally, our study has several limitations that need elaboration. First, the data collected
pertained only to apparel shoppers thus limiting the applicability of findings to other types of
retail and service settings. We expect our results to get even more pronounced in the sectors
where the personal service component and perceived risk associated with the purchase outcome
are higher, such as medical services. Second, majority of the respondents (about 60%) were
college students even though the data gathering site was a large public shopping mall. This slant
is attributed partly to the fact that the mall was very proximate to a large university and partly to
the higher propensity of students, as opposed to more mature segments, to respond to survey
requests. Third, our study was a field study which, while increasing the study realism, also
exposed it to a number of uncontrollable factors such as variations in the store type, size, design,
employee quality and quantity as well as sample composition variation. Future studies can be
conducted in controlled laboratory settings which can more specifically explore the precise
psychological processes that link crowding and employees’ role in influencing its outcomes.
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7. 6
Figure1. Conceptual Model
Table 2. Results for Hypothesized Model and Alternative Model
Standardized path coefficient
and (t-values)
Hypothesis Model a Model b Sonuçlar
H1: PC → S .68 (10.03) .47 (7.02) Supported
H2:PC → BI .43 (6.48) .31 (4.45) Supported
H3:PC → PER .58 (10.15) .55 (9.96) Supported
H4a:PER → S .31 (5.08) Supported
H4b:PER →BI .16 (2.48) Supported
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