Kristine Fritz

Manfred Bruhn

Verena Schoenmueller

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ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH 
 
Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802 
 
 
Perceived Employee's Authenticity - What Is It? How Can It Be Measured? Does It Affect Customer Behavior?
Kristine Fritz, University of Basel, Switzerland 
Verena Schoenmueller, University of Basel, Switzerland 
Manfred Bruhn, University of Basel, Switzerland 
 
Customers increasingly demand authenticity in the behavior they experience. Past research focuses on employee’s self-reported
authenticity and employee’s authentic emotional display. Due to the rising need for authenticity in consumption processes, the present
study aims to conceptualize and operationalize the customer’s perception of authentic employees.
 
 
[to cite]:
Kristine Fritz, Verena Schoenmueller, and Manfred Bruhn (2015) ,"Perceived Employee's Authenticity - What Is It? How Can It
Be Measured? Does It Affect Customer Behavior?", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 43, eds. Kristin Diehl  and
Carolyn Yoon, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 526-526.
 
[url]:
http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1019820/volumes/v43/NA-43
 
[copyright notice]:
This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in
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526 
Advances in Consumer Research
Volume 43, ©2015
Perceived Employee’s Authenticity - What Is It?  
How Can It Be Measured? Does It Affect Customer Behavior?
Kristine Fritz, University of Basel, Switzerland
Verena Schoenmueller, University of Basel, Switzerland
Manfred Bruhn, University of Basel, Switzerland
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
The concept of customer’s perceived authenticity is intensively 
discussed in the marketing literature and is termed as “one corner-
stone of contemporary marketing” (Brown, Kozinets, and Sherry 
2003, p. 21). Past research focuses on authenticity within the brand 
arena (e.g., Napoli et al. 2014), employee’s self-reported authenticity 
(e.g., Ashforth and Tomiuk 2000), and employee’s authentic emo-
tional display (e.g., Grandey et al. 2005). Only a few studies have 
investigated the customer perspective of employee authenticity so far 
(Sirianni et al. 2013; Yagil 2014), whereby the exact nature and di-
mensional structure of the construct have been largely ignored. To the 
best of the authors’ knowledge, no holistic conceptualization and op-
erationalization of customer’s perceived employee’s authenticity ex-
ists. Due to the rising need for authenticity in consumption processes, 
a comprehensive examination of customer’s perceived employee’s 
authenticity (PEA) is a research topic that demands further atten-
tion. This is emphasized by the subjectivity of service evaluations 
due to the uno actu principle and the immaterial nature of services, 
since no objective quality criteria (e.g., durability, workmanship) can 
be drawn on. Therefore, customer employee interactions serve as a 
surrogate measure for quality constituting a crucial success factor. 
The fact that individuals’ perceptions of each other are the basis of 
social interactions (Fiske et al. 1987), and thus of positive service ex-
periences, highlights the importance of investigating the underlying 
mechanisms that affect customers’ perceptions of employees. Thus, 
a comprehensive understanding of how customers perceive authentic 
employees would provide relevant insights into customers’ percep-
tual processes and help to explain behavioral outcomes of service 
interactions for the purpose of improving service encounters.
To fill this research gap, the present study aims to conceptual-
ize the customer’s perception of authentic employees as well as to 
develop a PEA scale and analyze it. Therefore, the following steps 
are implemented: First, by building on relevant findings drawn from 
the social cognition literature, a theoretical framework is developed. 
Second, to integrate the customer’s conceptions of authentic em-
ployees, two qualitative studies (Study 1, N=66; Study 2, N=34) are 
conducted along with a literature review. Third, building on these 
findings, items covering the identified dimensions are generated. In 
Study 3 (N=216), an exploratory factor analysis is implemented to 
determine the dimensionality of the scale. In Study 4 (N=303), us-
ing a shorter scale and a new sample of individuals, exploratory and 
confirmatory factor analyses are used to further determine the dimen-
sionality of the scale. Additionally, the scale’s distinctiveness from 
relevant service constructs is shown, whereby discriminant validity 
is examined. Moreover, multigroup confirmatory factor analyses test 
measurement invariance of the PEA scale across samples and gender 
(Study 5, N=385). Fourth, using a role-playing experimental design, 
it is analyzed when and how PEA predicts customer outcomes (Study 
6, N=435). This method allows us to investigate the direct and indi-
rect impacts of PEA on customer outcomes, as well as the moderat-
ing effects of customer-specific characteristics. 
Employee perceptions arise in a variety of settings and forms 
when customers interact with service employees. Accordingly, PEA 
is conceptualized as a subjective concept that involves variant and 
invariant aspects of an employee’s behavior, appearance, and per-
sonality, which characterize his or her role identity as an employee 
as well as his or her personal identity. The present investigation dem-
onstrates that PEA can be broken down into four dimensions (i.e., 
working passion, naturalness, advisory skills, and need orientation). 
The constructed PEA scale consists of 16 items and is therefore ac-
ceptable with regard to its length and ease of implementation. The 
identified items and dimensions capture the concept of perceived em-
ployee’s authenticity in a reliable and valid way. The scale’s invari-
ance across different samples and demographics (i.e., gender) further 
supports the construct’s generalizability. Internal consistency as well 
as the scale’s conceptual distinctiveness from other relevant and re-
lated marketing concepts is confirmed. Moreover, the appropriate-
ness of a second-order structure is supported by the data. Further-
more, the findings indicate that the four identified PEA dimensions 
successfully capture the phenomena of employee authenticity. The 
superior impact of employee authenticity on customer’s in-role and 
extra-role behaviors compared to inauthentic employees is demon-
strated and can be explained by a mediation effect through psycho-
logical safety. In addition, the findings show that the analyzed effects 
vary depending on customer-specific characteristics (i.e., aspiration 
level). Overall, our results not only highlight the crucial role of per-
ceived authenticity in service interactions, but also uncover when 
and why employee authenticity is most influential in reinforcing cus-
tomer outcomes.
REFERENCES
Ashforth, Blake E. and Marc A. Tomiuk (2000), “Emotional Labour 
and Authenticity: Views from Service Agents,” in Emotions in 
Organizations, Vol. 2, ed. Stephen Fineman, London: SAGE, 
184-202.
Brown, Stephen, Robert V. Kozinets, and John F. Sherry Jr. (2003), 
“Teaching Old Brands New Tricks: Retro Branding and the 
Revival of Brand Meaning,” Journal of Marketing, 67 (3), 19-33.
Fiske, Susan T., Steven L. Neuberg, Ann E. Beattie, and Sandra 
J. Milberg (1987), “Category-Based and Attribute-Based 
Reactions to Others: Some Informational Conditions of 
Stereotyping and Individuating Processes,” Journal of 
Experimental Social Psychology, 23 (5), 399-427. 
Grandey, Alicia A., Glenda M. Fisk, Anna S. Mattila, A.S., Karen J. 
Jansen, and Lori A. Sideman (2005), “Is ‘Service with a Smile’ 
Enough? Authenticity of Positive Displays during Service 
Encounters,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision 
Processes, 96 (1), 38-55.
Napoli, Julie, Sonia J. Dickinson, Michael B. Beverland, and 
Francis Farrelly (2013), “Measuring Consumer-Based Brand 
Authenticity,” Journal of Business Research, 67 (6), 1090-1098.
Sirianni, Nancy J., Mary Jo Bitner, Stephen W. Brown, and Naomi 
Mandel (2013), “Branded Service Encounters: Strategically 
Aligning Employee Behavior with the Brand Positioning,” 
Journal of Marketing, 77 (6), 108-123. 
Yagil, Dana (2012), “The Mediating Role of Engagement and 
Burnout in the Relationship between Employees’ Emotion 
Regulation Strategies and Customer Outcomes,” European 
Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 21 (1), 150-
168.


Perceived Employee&apos;s Authenticity -What Is It? How Can It Be Measured? Does It Affect Customer Behavior?

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