Tightening or loosening the “iron cage”? The impact of formal and informal display controls on service customers

How can service firms manage displays of frontline service employees most effectively? Building on organizational control theory, this research develops a typology of employee display controls for routine service delivery that distinguishes three formal controls (aesthetic, emotional, and verbal) and organizational culture as informal control, and tests their effects on service customers, assuming frontline employees implement controls. A role-playing experiment involving repeat service customers reveals that informal cultural control has a greater effect on customer outcomes than do formal controls. Specifically, cultural control exerts positive effects on customer arousal, perceived service quality, and trust in the frontline employee; formal controls have no significant or even negative effects. The findings suggest that service companies should reconsider their formal control strategies and increase their use of cultural controls.