Reflecting on the importance of negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) executed by internal audience of brand management, this study aims to explore the mechanism of employees’ NWOM in the emotional exhaustion context.
Focusing on employees’ active brand-oriented deviances, this study used a surveyed data set (n = 150) collected from negatively aroused employees experiencing a negative event within their organization. Structural equation modeling was adopted to test the hypotheses.
The current study revealed that employees’ NWOM is associated with emotional exhaustion. Also, it discovered that emotional exhaustion is more strongly associated with employees’ NWOM than turnover intention.
Relying on self-regulation theory, the current study identified emotional exhaustion as a critical antecedent of employees’ NWOM. Future researchers can use the longitudinal research design or temporal separation as an effort to prevent common method variance.
Internal audiences engage in negative brand-oriented performance by spreading NWOM. Further, the advance in social media may instigate NWOM spread by internal audiences to external audiences.
This paper tests the explanatory power of conservation of resources theory and self-regulatory theory in terms of the impact of employees’ emotional exhaustion on NWOM and turnover intention.
