A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis of the Dark Side of Customer Behavior: An Integrative Customer Incivility Framework

The dark side of customer behavior has been receiving increasing attention in the business and management literature in recent years. Scholars have used various terminologies to study those customer behaviors that disrupt service delivery, affect organizational performance, and impact on employees’ well-being. In this study, through a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of 246 academic articles, we identify three clusters within the dark side of customer behavior literature: (1) customer dysfunctional behavior; (2) customer revenge and rage as forms of customer misbehavior; and (3) customer mistreatment and incivility-related clusters. Based on these three identified clusters of the literature, we propose an integrative framework of customer incivility as customer incivility is the current centerpiece of the literature on the dark side of customer behavior. In doing so, we identify various research gaps and suggest effective avenues for future works in this research stream.