The moderating effects of gender roles on service emotional contagion

This study attempts to examine how service personnel's appearances, attitudes, and behaviours affect customers' emotions and thus their satisfaction and loyalty; it also considers gender roles an important moderator, in that customers with different gender roles may detect and feel differently when they are exposed to personnel's appearances, attitudes, and behaviours. Empirical data were collected from customers in clothing shops in Taiwan. The results suggest that customers with androgynous role more sensitive to the emotional contagion process. Managerial implications and future research directions are also discussed.     

Board gender diversity and firm performance: The moderating role of firm size

This paper investigates the relationships among board gender diversity, firm performance, and firm size. Our paper provides new insights into the relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance by examining whether firm size alters the impact of board gender diversity on firm performance. We use a panel data from A-share-listed non-financial firms in China to examine the relationship during the period of 2007–2012. Our finding demonstrates that the gender diversity on the board has a positive impact on firm performance if and only if the value of firm size is less than some critical value. In addition, we also find that firm size may undermine the positive impact of board gender diversity on firm performance. This paper contributes to the literature by offering a contingency approach to examine the relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance as well as shedding light on the relationship in the context of a developing economy.     

The moderating effects of gender and inside versus outside sales role in multifaceted job satisfaction

Two key trends in B2B sales organizations are increased representation by females in sales roles and a shift toward more inside sales positions than has been true in the past. Prior work on multifaceted job satisfaction among salespeople has not fully taken these elements into account. This study furthers the literature by examining the moderating role of gender and inside versus outside sales role on multifaceted job satisfaction. Results provide opportunity for provocative discussion among sales organizational leadership of more customized approaches to improve the satisfaction of the sales force.     

Exploring the relationship of perceived automotive salesperson attributes, customer satisfaction and intentions to automotive service department patronage: The moderating role of customer gender

This study examines the relationship of perceived automotive salesperson attributes and customer satisfaction behavior in the purchase experience leading to the patronage of a service department in an automotive dealership. Logistic regression analyses indicate that gender moderates the relationship of the perceived salesperson attributes and customer satisfaction as well as intentions for service department patronage. The model distinguishes users from non-users of the service department and does this better for females than for males. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of the managerial implications and directions for future research.     

Does gender moderate the effects of role stress in frontline service jobs?

By focusing on gender differences in structural relationships rather than differences in levels of constructs, this study extends Babin and Boles' [Babin B. J., Boles J. S. Employee behavior in a service environment: a model and test of potential differences between men and women. Journal of Marketing 1998;62:77–91.] research examining the effects of role stress on customer-contact employees' various job outcomes to a new context (frontline bank employees in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus). Results indicate that gender has a moderating role on the relationships between role ambiguity and self-efficacy, and role conflict and job satisfaction. Cultural norms may play a role in the way gender moderates these relationships.     

An assessment of value creation in mobile service delivery and the moderating role of time consciousness

This study focuses on the perceived utilitarian value of a new service delivery mode, the mobile channel. The authors develop a framework that incorporates three mode-specific benefits - time convenience, user control, and service compatibility - as well as two costs - perceived risk and cognitive effort - as antecedents of perceived value. Because of the pervasiveness of time criticality as a value-added characteristic of the mobile channel, they also investigate the moderating influence of consumers’ time consciousness. They empirically investigate the model using mobile brokerage services as an illustrative application. The results reveal that the identified antecedents, with the exception of service compatibility, have a strong impact on mobile channel value perceptions, which in turn influence behavioral intentions. The authors also find that time consciousness moderates the aforementioned relationships.     

Group service recovery strategies effectiveness: The moderating effects of group size and relational distance

The extant service recovery literature focuses on consumers' responses to individual failures. However, group service failures are in fact common, but they have received insufficient research attention. This study contributes to theory and practice by applying social impact theory to explain the social nature of group failures. Findings from two studies show that group size and relational distance substantially affect consumers' response to group service recovery strategies. Specifically, private economic recovery creates less consumer satisfaction as group size increases, whereas consumers with a distant social relationship are more satisfied with public recovery for both economic recovery and social recovery. However, consumers with close relationships are more satisfied with public economic recovery and private social recovery. Apart from offering practical insights, this study expands the theoretical understanding of service failures, suggesting that they occur in a complex social ecology instead of relatively simple dyadic interactions between service providers and consumers.     

How background visual complexity influences purchase intention in live streaming: The mediating role of emotion and the moderating role of gender

There is growing evidence that visual complexity plays a crucial role in consumer purchase behavior. However, existing research on background visual complexity’s effect on individuals’ purchase intention in live streaming is limited. This study explores the relationships between live background visual complexity, emotional states, and purchase intention, by drawing on the stimulus-organism-response theory. A 3 × 2 between-subjects online experiment was developed with participants’ emotional and intention data. The results indicate that the background visual complexity of the livestream room influences consumers’ purchase intention positively via the evoked emotional states (pleasure and arousal). Background visual complexity exhibits an inverted U-shaped effect on consumers’ emotions. Additionally, the results reveal a significant moderating effect of gender on the relationship between background visual complexity and purchase intention. Women exhibit an inverted U-shaped effect on emotion and purchase intention, whereas men show a positive linear relationship when faced with complexity.     

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.     

Impacts of retail brand personality and self-congruity on store loyalty: The moderating role of gender

The present study was an effort to investigate the impacts of both retail brand personality and self-congruity, using them together in the same study, on store loyalty. Subsequently, this study explored the moderating role of gender in these relationships of retail brand personality and self-congruity with store loyalty. Questionnaire was used to collect data (n=355) using systematic sampling from department store shoppers of age 18 years and above in Kolkata, a metropolitan city of India. Multivariate data analysis techniques like exploratory factor analysis, structural equation modeling were used to analyse the data. Results revealed that both retail brand personality and self-congruity constructs have positive impacts on store loyalty and gender significantly moderates these impacts. Arguably, this paper is the first to examine the three constructs namely, retail brand personality, self-congruity and store loyalty using them together in the same model. Academic and managerial implications are further discussed.     

Timing of apology after service failure: the moderating role of future interaction expectation on customer satisfaction

Marketing Letters - When there is a service failure, it is often believed that employees should immediately apologize to customers before hearing their complaints. However, we argue that in certain...     

Performance effects of international expansion processes: The moderating role of top management team experiences

This study investigates how experience of top management teams (TMTs) influences the performance effect of added cultural distance in international expansion processes. Taking a dynamic perspective, we focus on internationalization processes and the cultural distance that is added in expansion periods. We argue that a TMT's experience can help in coping with the complexities of added cultural distance. Based on information-processing theory, we hypothesize and find that international experience and shared team-specific experience of a TMT positively moderate the relationship between added cultural distance and firm profitability. We test our hypotheses based on cross-sectional time-series data on 3656 expansion steps of 80 German firms during the 1985–2007 period.     

Service climate and employee service performance: exploring the moderating role of job stress and organizational identification

Drawing on a sample of 368 frontline employees and 45 managers from five Chinese banks, this study examined the relationship between service climate and frontline employee service performance, including in-role and extra-role performance, and the difference of this relationship considering the moderating role of employee's emotional experience (job stress and organizational identification). Empirical results indicated the positive effect of service climate on service performance as hypothesized. Moreover, job stress negatively moderated the relationship between service climate and extra-role performance, while organizational identification positively moderated the climate–performance relationship.     

Value co-creation and employee service behaviours: The moderating role of trust in employee - hotel relationship

Value co-creation (VC) is generally considered as having mutually beneficial implications for all actors involved. Nonetheless, emerging evidence on value co-destruction and its consequences on the wellbeing of co-creating actors implies that narrowing down on specific fallouts of this process is needed for managerial interventions. This paper contributes to the value-co-creation literature by exploring the relationship between customer participation in VC on some difficult to detect employee service behaviors: workaholism and fear-based silence. The extent to which employee trust (TRS) in employee – hotel relationship moderates these relations is assessed. While the findings from 422 frontline employee-customer data within luxury hotels in Ghana support a negative effect of VC on fear-based silence and workaholism, TRS buffered these effects. We recommend that VC in service failure and recovery be approached with tact, compassion, and forgiveness.     

The relationship between informational justice, recovery satisfaction, and loyalty: the moderating role of failure attributions

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between informational justice, recovery satisfaction, and customer loyalty, as well as the moderating role of failure attributions, concerning the link between informational justice and recovery satisfaction. Data were gathered by means of survey from airline passengers who experienced a failure and, subsequently, a recovery within the past 1 year. The current study extends previous research by incorporating informational justice, as well as investigating the impact of stability and controllability attributions, within the existing framework of customers’ post-recovery evaluations. The results of this study found that failure attributions (stability, the frequency of failures, and controllability, whether the airline is responsible for the situation) moderate the relationship between informational justice and recovery satisfaction. The findings also confirmed that there is a positive and significant relationship between recovery satisfaction and loyalty.     

Airline website loyalty formation and the moderating effects of gender and education

The objective of this study is to analyse the moderating effects of gender and education on users’ loyalty to the website of an airline. We provide a tested model for greater understanding the effects of gender and education on the loyalty of experienced users in utilitarian purchasers of airline’s website. The results reveal that website quality, e-satisfaction, e-trust and affective e-loyalty are antecedents of conative e-loyalty in loyalty relationships between passengers and airline websites, as well as the importance of university education in the configuration of loyalty to the website. Consumers with university education are found to be more likely to purchase through the websites of airline companies than those without. Also, according to the most recent literature, the moderating effect of gender has been found non-significant in most of the causal relationships presented in the model studied.     

How to boost frontline employee service recovery performance: the role of cultural intelligence

Service Business - Satisfying complaining customers is challenging, especially when dealing with the increasing number of customers with culturally diverse backgrounds. The purpose of this study is...     

Product recalls and the moderating role of brand commitment

We assess attenuating and augmenting effects of brand commitment on consumer responses when product recalls occur. Consistent with our theorization, results from a laboratory experiment and an event study show that high levels of brand commitment attenuate negative consumer responses in low-severity product recalls but augment them in high-severity product recalls. Thus, while brand commitment seems to provide a reservoir of goodwill in the former case, it acts as a liability in the latter. These findings add to the extant brand and product recall literature by demonstrating that brand commitment has a complex effect on consumer responses when product recalls occur. Because product recalls are widespread, these findings also have managerial relevance.     

Leading ethically to shape service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior among tourism salespersons: Dual mediation paths and moderating role of service role identity

While ethical leadership may have boundary-spanning effects on different stakeholders even beyond the organizational boundaries, the role of ethical sales leadership in promoting sales and service behavior outcomes has not been fully researched. Our research aims to unfold how and when sales managers’ ethical leadership evokes service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among salespersons in the tourism setting. Grounded on the dataset from managers and employees working in sales departments of tour companies in Vietnam, the results reveal the role of adaptive selling and service harmonious passion as dual mediation channels for the link between ethical sales leadership and service-oriented OCB. The findings further lend credence to the moderating role that service role identity plays for the impacts of ethical sales leadership on these two mediators.     

Analysing the fulfilment of service recovery paradox in retailing

The literature dealing with the Service Recovery Paradox (SRP) is vast, but some results are confusing and contradictory. In addition to this, scarce attention has been paid to service recovery in the context of retailing. This paper aims at verifying the compliance of the SRP in the context of retailing. Considering a sample of consumers that experienced a failure in the service delivered by a retailer and are very satisfied with the solution provided by the store employee, we test first the fulfilment of the SRP in the context of retailing. Secondly, we test the existence of significant differences in the customer satisfaction levels with the store before and after experiencing the problem considering several factors potentially influencing the impact of service recovery on customer satisfaction, therefore providing an encompassing analysis of the SRP and its main influencing variables, including some potential factors not previously explored. While we do not find evidence of the fulfilment of the SRP in retailing, differences in customer satisfaction before and after service recovery are highly related with consumer sociodemographic characteristics and shopping experience. Findings raise some practical implications.