Customer-focused voice behavior serves as an important information source for a hospitality organization to correct problems and make informed decisions. While mistreatment frontline hotel employees experience has become more prevalent, the effect of customer mistreatment as a social stressor on customer-focused voice behavior remains underexplored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of customer mistreatment on customer-focused voice behavior and the moderating effects of emotional intelligence and perceived initiative climate in the relationship between customer mistreatment and customer-focused voice behavior. Convenience and snowball sampling will be employed to collect data from frontline hotel employees in the U.S. The anticipated findings may guide hotel managers to craft interventions aimed at motivating their frontline employees to provide constructive input even when they are frequently exposed to abusive or unfair treatment from customers.
