Breaking rules yet helpful for all: Beneficial effects of pro‐customer rule breaking on employee outcomes

Abstract

Summary Pro‐customer rule breaking refers to employees' breaking of organizational rules with the primary intention of helping customers or providing better customer service. In spite of its prosocial nature, it is unclear whether and how pro‐customer rule breaking also benefits employees who engage in this behavior. Drawing on self‐determination theory, we examine employees' well‐being and voice at work as outcomes of pro‐customer rule breaking. Across a simulation study and a critical incident‐based survey study, we found that pro‐customer rule breaking was positively related to employee psychological need fulfillment, which, in turn, was associated with lower emotional exhaustion, higher job satisfaction, and increased voice. Furthermore, normative conflict with organizational rule moderated the positive relationship between pro‐customer rule breaking and psychological need fulfillment such that employees with high normative conflict with organizational rule (i.e., employee perception that their existing organizational rule results in inefficiency and that their organization could be much better if it changed its practices) benefited more from their pro‐customer rule breaking. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and offer directions for future research.