Who's the boss? A role-theoretic analysis of customer work

Following a role-theoretic perspective, we conceptualize employees who work with customers as brokers between an organization and its customers. This unique organizational position increases the likelihood that its occupants will face conflicting demands from the two constituencies they serve, the o rganization and the customer. We propose, however, that the work conditions of resource adequacy, role clarity, and autonomy moderate the effect that working with customers has on role conflict. Survey data from 5,811 employe es at a national telecommunications firm are used to test these role-theore tic hypotheses. Compared with those who do not work with customers, "custom er work" does produce greater role conflict. Also, as hypothesized, when co mparing customer work and noncustomer work, role clarity reduces role confl ict more for noncustomer workers, whereas autonomy reduces it more for cust omer workers. Suggestions are offered for additional applications of role t heory to the study of employees who work with customers.