Workplace Harassment Intensity and Revenge: Mediation and Moderation Effects

This study examines the mediating role of rumination, state anger, and blame attribution, and the moderating role of trait forgiveness in the relationship between workplace harassment intensity and revenge among employed students at a medium-sized Midwestern U.S. university (N = 310) and full-time employees from various industries in Shanghai, China (N = 251). We tested the proposed model using techniques described by Hayes (Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis, The Guilford Press, New York, 2013). Results within both samples suggested that workplace harassment intensity is positively associated with both major and minor revenge. Results of multiple mediation tests showed that state anger and blame attribution mediated the relationships between workplace harassment intensity and both types of revenge behavior. Furthermore, trait forgiveness moderated the relationship between blame attribution and major revenge.     

Managing service recovery experience: Effects of the forgiveness for older consumers

The research studies empirically the role that fairness plays in shaping emotional and behavioral forgiveness among older U.S. consumers (55 years of age and older). A theoretical model is proposed and tested that proposes, consistent with theory on emotions, that perceptions of justice affect behavioral forgiveness through emotional forgiveness. An alternative theory questions whether the effects of justice are totally mediated by emotion. Comparative results support the latter model. The cognitive perceptions of justice display a stronger effect compared to the mediated effect through emotional forgiveness. Additionally, an examination of moderation by psychological age suggests that relatively old and young (psychologically) consumers react in the same manner. While clearly, service managers need to be sensitive to the emotions of senior customers, the results here suggest a stronger role for cognitive perceptions of justice. Thus, service providers need to provide senior consumers with clearly understandable explanations for any service failure and explain how the recovery efforts will compensate for the failure.     

Managing social media recovery: The important role of service recovery transparency in retaining customers

This research examines the influence of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness to retain customers in the context of service recovery via social media. We propose that customer forgiveness mediates the effect of service recovery transparency on switchover intentions. We further posit that the effect of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness is moderated by two additional recovery strategies, i.e., apology and explanation. The results of two studies, i.e., a survey and a scenario-based experiment, show that service recovery transparency acts to elicit customer forgiveness, which subsequently negatively affects switchover intentions. Furthermore, both apology and explanation moderate the effect of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness. The positive effect of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness is attenuated when an apology/explanation is absent.     

The effects of harm directions and service recovery strategies on customer forgiveness and negative word-of-mouth intentions

This study aims to investigate the direction of harm and the role of service recovery strategies on customer positive (i.e., forgiveness) and negative (i.e., word-of-mouth) intentions. We found that customer intentions are stronger among those who are directly affected by the service failure than indirectly affected customers. Further, we assess the role of service recovery in customer intentions after the service failure. The study findings contribute to the development of theory on the “other customers” effect by comparing the consequences of service failure directed at the focal customer and other customers and provide solutions to practitioners to reduce this damaging effect.     

Service Recovery,Justice Perception,and Forgiveness: The “Other Customers” Perspectives

ABSTRACT

While extant research has examined the effects of service recovery on customer attitude and behavior, little is known about whether customers react differently to the same recovery depending on whether they are victims or observers of a service failure. Adopting the “other customers” perspectives, this study used a quasiexperimental design using scenarios in a professional services context with 267 U.S. respondents recruited from Qualtrics national online panel. We found that when compensation is offered, victims will perceive a higher level of distributive justice than observers. However, the effects of service recovery on forgiveness intention is stronger among observers than victims.     

The role of personality characteristics and service failure severity in consumer forgiveness and service outcomes

Abstract

This study investigates how consumer personality characteristics of religiosity, spirituality, and emotional intelligence and the severity of service failure affect emotional and decisional forgiveness as a response to service failure. Further, the study explores the relationships between these two forms of forgiveness and service outcomes, including the intention to switch the service provider and spread negative word of mouth. Findings reveal that consumer religiosity has a strong and positive effect on both types of forgiveness. However, contrary to expectations, consumer spirituality has a negative relationship with decisional and no relationship with emotional forgiveness. While consumers' perceived severity of service failure is negatively related to both types of forgiveness, the findings also suggest that emotional intelligence exerts a significant moderating influence on the relationship between service failure severity and emotional forgiveness, whereas its moderating effect on decisional forgiveness does not appear to be significant. Results demonstrate the asymmetric effects of perceived severity of service failure and the two types of forgiveness on negative service outcomes. These findings contribute to the understanding on the role of consumers' implicit personality characteristics in interpretation of service failure incidents.     

Understanding organization-customer links in a service setting in Russia

This study examines the effect of management commitment to service quality on customer satisfaction through the mediating links of service climate and core and relational service performance in a high-power distance culture. Data were collected using a survey distributed to the FLEs and customers of branches of a Russian retail bank. Study findings demonstrate that branch service climate mediates the management commitment to service quality – service performance relationship and that this indirect effect is stronger on core service performance relative to relational service performance. Contrary to expectations, our findings demonstrate the importance of relational service performance relative to core service performance as a mediator of the branch service climate – branch customer satisfaction relationship. Implications of these novel findings and future research directions are discussed.     

Gulping the Poison: How Webcare Attributes Reduce Damages to Brands Caused by Negative Reviews

Negative reviews written by unsatisfied consumers can significantly erode the image of a brand. Therefore, marketers regularly respond to these reviews through written messages posted on online channels: a practice known as webcare. The present article seeks to explore whether selected webcare attributes, such as strength, sidedness, and ownership, have any effects on consumers’ forgiveness of the service failures caused by transgressing firms. Furthermore, the effects of consumer forgiveness on satisfaction with webcare, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions are also investigated. The article examines these relationships in the context of a fine dining restaurant (Study 1) and a hotel (Study 2). The results reveal that webcare attributes play a salient role in achieving consumer forgiveness. Furthermore, the studies also reveal that consumer forgiveness leads to satisfaction with webcare and improved brand attitudes and purchase intentions.     

Innovativeness and business relationships in women‐owned firms: The role of gender stereotypes

This paper investigates the relationship between business contacts and innovativeness in women‐owned firms and how women entrepreneurs’ perception of gender stereotypes affects this relationship. Data were collected through a survey of 107 women entrepreneurs in Spain. The results show that maintaining close contacts with managers/entrepreneurs in different industries and with customers is significant in explaining innovativeness in women‐owned firms. The stronger the women entrepreneurs’ perception of stereotypes that deviate from the masculine profile of the entrepreneur, the stronger the influence of these two types of close contact on innovativeness. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Employee display of burnout in the service encounter and its impact on customer satisfaction

This study examines if employee display of burnout symptoms in service encounters has an impact on customer satisfaction. An experimental approach was used in which the employee's display of burnout (absent vs. present) and the service performance level (low vs. high) were the manipulated factors. The results show that employee display of burnout had a negative impact on customer satisfaction, that this effect was mediated by customers’ appraisals of the employee's emotional state, and that the effect was stronger under the condition of low service performance.     

The effect of service failure types and service recovery on customer satisfaction: a mental accounting perspective

Service failure recoveries play an important role in the service process. Previous research on service recovery has focused on the development of classification schemes, such as service failure types (e.g. outcome- or process-related failure), service recovery attributes (e.g. psychological or tangible recovery), and failure magnitude. Few studies in the literature have developed a theory-driven model of customer satisfaction that considers whether different types of service failure warrant different types of service recovery. This article, which reports the results of two studies, draws on mental accounting theory to examine the effect of the relationship between service failure and service recovery on customer satisfaction. The results of Study 1 show that customer satisfaction is greater when service recovery efforts truly make up for what customers have lost and that prior experience of service failure has a significant influence on the effectiveness of those efforts. The results of Study 2 indicate that the magnitude of a service failure also has an impact on the effectiveness of service recovery efforts.     

Customer participation in service recovery: a meta-analysis

Research on customer participation in service recovery is surging, yet empirical examinations provide mixed results. A meta-analysis of 30 independent samples reported in 21 studies (N?=?7872) shows that the effect sizes for the relationships between customer participation in service recovery and customer outcomes are rather weak. We also find that customer participation in service recovery has an indirect effect on satisfaction with service recovery via distributive justice and procedural justice, but not via interactional justice. Conversely, customer participation in service recovery has an indirect effect on overall satisfaction via distributive justice and interactional justice, but not via procedural justice. Finally, the effectiveness of customer participation in service recovery is stronger when customers participate in the outcome of the recovery and for customers with an Eastern cultural background, but weaker when additional compensation is offered and in online settings.     

国外消费者宽恕研究综述及趋势展望

产品危机或服务失误发生后,补救措施作为外部刺激,其根本目的在于激起消费者的内部响应,引导消费者宽恕。消费者宽恕是企业长期服务补救努力的关键所在,可为企业创造极高的价值,对重构双方关系、实现顾客保留具有重要作用。深入研究消费者宽恕的形成机理及其作用机制具有重要的理论与实践意义。目前,虽然国内外学者已经开始重视对消费者宽恕的研究,但相关理论研究还不够深入,理论框架也不够完善。未来的研究应对消费者宽恕测量工具的开发、消费者个体差异对宽恕的影响、消费者宽恕结果变量的实证研究、情境宽恕的跨文化实证研究予以重点关注。     

A cross-cultural investigation of the relationship between eco-innovation and customers boycott behaviour

Retailers are under pressure to utilise eco-innovation to improve their operations and reduce customers boycotts as a result of the growing concerns of customers about environmental issues. Thus, this paper examines the effect of eco-innovation (i.e., reactive eco-innovation, proactive eco-innovation) on customers boycotts behaviours across various cultural environments. It also explores the role of ethical ideology (i.e., idealism, relativism) on this relationship. Based on psychological contract violation theory was used to develop our study model. We collected data from 3392 consumers from four different countries to test the study model. The results indicated that company's reactive eco-innovation is positively related to customers boycotts behaviour and this relationship is stronger in the developed societies (i.e., UK, USA) than in the developing societies (i.e., Saudi Arabia, Egypt). Furthermore, proactive eco-innovation has a negative effect on boycotts. This link is stronger in the in the developing societies (i.e., Saudi Arabia, Egypt) than in the developed societies (i.e., UK, USA). Psychological contract violation and environmental concerns were found to mediate this relationship. Moreover, our study found that idealism has a negative influence on boycotts while relativism has a positive effect on boycotts. Our study offers meaningful theoretical and managerial implications for retailers in different cultural contexts.     

Why does service inclusion matter? The effect of service exclusion on customer indirect misbehavior

In recent years, there has been much conceptual work calling for research on transformative service, and service inclusion in particular. However, quantitative studies focusing on service inclusion are scant, and little is known about customer responses to the opposite of service inclusion, i.e. service exclusion. Taking a transformative research perspective, this study advances the service inclusion literature by focusing on service exclusion and its downstream consequences. We first build the causal link between service exclusion (vs. inclusion) and customer indirect misbehavior, reveal the underlying mechanism, and further identify negative reciprocity beliefs as a boundary condition. The results of three studies suggest that customers who experience service exclusion (vs. inclusion) are more likely to engage in indirect misbehavior (Study 1), and that this effect is mediated by perceived need threat (Study 2). Moreover, the basic effect holds true only for customers with strong negative reciprocity beliefs (Study 3). The findings of this research not only contribute to the literature on transformative services, service inclusion, and social exclusion, but also have managerial implications for marketing practitioners in terms of creating an inclusive service system.     

To err is human: Tolerate humans instead of machines in service failure

Full automation and self-service technologies have become popular in service marketing. However, customers often face multiple issues when dealing with self-service technologies. This paper examines the effect of service-failure type (employee failure vs. self-service technology failure) on customers' negative responses (dissatisfaction, forgiveness, willingness to switch between employee and self-service technology, and negative word of mouth). Through four experiments with Amazon Mechanical Turk workers and undergraduate students, this research finds that customers have more negative responses for a self-service technology failure than for an employee failure. This is because they get angrier with machines' mistakes than with those of humans. Moreover, empathy alleviates anger and customers’ negative responses in employee failure, but not in self-service technology failure. This research offers service providers new insights by scrutinizing the flip side of complete automation in service marketing.     

The negative effects of expecting to evaluate: Reexamination and extension in the context of service failure

Service managers implement customer satisfaction evaluation cards (CSECs) to help them better understand and serve their customers. Yet a robust finding from recent research is that consumers who expect to evaluate provide lower satisfaction ratings than customers who are asked to evaluate without prior notice. This article reports results of two experiments that examine the effects of expecting to evaluate (here, the CSEC effect) in the negative context of service failure. The experiments utilize thought‐listing protocols to differentiate between vigilant processing (VPT) and negativity bias (NBT) theories and reinforce the internal validity of the CSEC effect. The studies also extend prior research by separating CSEC effects on evaluations of the service employee from CSEC effects on the service firm overall. Study 2 examines consequences of the CSEC effect not previously studied (switching, complaining, and negative word‐of‐mouth intentions) and extends external validity through an international replication. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Happiness as a predictor of service quality and commitment for utilitarian and hedonic services

In services research, little attention has been devoted to long‐term intrinsic personality traits. Long‐term personality traits predict short‐term affective states and thus understanding them is important from a service standpoint. Further, identifying long‐term personality traits facilitates the targeting of customers who are predisposed to evaluate services in a positive manner. This study focuses on one long‐term affective trait, happiness, and examines its impact on service evaluation and commitment, as it has been shown that the level of happiness affects whether people perceive life events, both great and small, in a positive or negative manner. Three studies were conducted to research the issue. The first study shows that customers who are happier evaluate service quality in utilitarian services in a more positive manner than do customers who are less happy. The second study shows that for hedonic services, involvement serves as an antecedent to perceived service quality; happier customers are also more involved in hedonic services, and thus perceive service quality in a more positive manner. Study 3 examines the link between happiness and commitment and shows that customers who are happier are also more prone to be committed to hedonic services. These results contribute to the marketing literature by showing that customers are predisposed to evaluate service quality in line with their level of happiness in the case of both utilitarian and hedonic services. Thus, marketing scholars and practitioners ought to recognize that service quality and commitment are partially predetermined by the personality of the customer and that some customers are more difficult to please than others. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Triadic relationship between customers,service providers and government in a highly regulated industry

This study investigates the triadic interplay among the government, service providers and customers in a highly regulated environment in a centrally planned economy influenced by communist political ideology. In order to answer the research question, we conducted two studies: Study 1 is a qualitative study aiming at exploring various aspects of the triadic interplay among customers, service providers and the regulatory framework, and Study 2 employed a quantitative approach to validate some findings in Study 1. It was found that the relationships between the three main entities in the market were not balanced. Service providers were more passive in their relationship with regulators. In addition, communications between customers and regulators were limited and not well-established. Customers had not been sufficiently engaged and thus, had little voice in the formulation of regulations. Furthermore, the perception of a firm's service quality and innovativeness was different among customers with different levels of perceived regulatory control and regulatory knowledge. As regulatory control and knowledge increased, customers were more likely to perceive a higher level of service quality and innovativeness. The research extends the domain of relationship marketing by incorporating the influence of the government or regulatory framework in the relationship between customers and service providers. The findings of this study can provide practical insights for policymakers and help service providers to effectively manage the relationships with their customers and regulatory bodies.     

Does Service Employee Arrogance Discourage Sales of Luxury Brands in Emerging Economies?

Upscalex stores selling luxury brands from Western, developed countries are having a strong presence in many emerging markets. However, it is not uncommon to find that the service employees of these stores are arrogant and inhospitable. This article uses a dual attitudes perspective to show how service employee arrogance affects customers’ attitudes and purchase intentions toward luxury brands in emerging markets. Experimental findings show that arrogance produces dual attitudes, with positive implicit attitudes exerting a stronger influence than unfavorable explicit attitudes on purchase intentions. In addition, for customers with high self‐esteem, service employee arrogance has a negative effect on their purchase intentions. In line with the expectation disconfirmation model, when service employees change their arrogant attitudes and subsequently show hospitality, customers also change their expectations. When the improved service exceeds customers’ expectations, their explicit attitudes turn positive and exert a stronger influence on purchase intentions than when service employees are consistently hospitable.