Klaus Schoefer

The impact of perceived justice on consumers' emotional responses to service complaint experiences

Purpose – Emotional responses to complaint experiences have received limited research interest. The current paper seeks to address this gap by considering the role of perceived justice in the elicitation of differential emotions following complaint‐handling experiences.Design/methodology/approach – Service scenario scripts were devised to depict a complaint‐handling encounter in relation to holiday check‐in arrangements. The scripts, which varied in terms of levels of interactional, procedural and distributive justice, were presented to a total of 384 respondents. Respondents were asked to imagine themselves as the person in the scenario and to indicate the extent to which different emotional adjectives described their reaction to the complaint‐handling encounter.Findings – Analyses of variance (ANOVA) revealed that perceived justice evaluations were predictive of the type of emotion (i.e. positive or negative) elicited.Research limitations/implications – Existing theoretical frameworks focus primarily on...

The Role of Emotions in Translating Perceptions of (In)Justice into Postcomplaint Behavioral Responses

There is widespread recognition in the literature that perceived (in)justice plays an important role in driving postcomplaint behavioral responses to service recovery experiences. However, this literature has evolved with little cross-reference to emotion research. This is problematic because much of psychology research has argued that emotion is the central mechanism through which a sense of (in)justice is translated into subsequent behavior. The current study seeks to address this issue by explicitly considering the role of perceived (in)justice in the elicitation of consumer emotions following service recovery encounters. Specifically, using survey data, the role of emotions in translating perceptions of (in)justice into subsequent postcomplaint behaviors (e.g., repurchase intention, negative word-of-mouth communication and third-party action) is investigated. Results provide empirical evidence for the contention that emotions act as mediators of the relationship between perceived justice and postcomplaint behaviors. These findings have significant implications for the theory and practice of service recovery management.

Cultural Moderation in the Formation of Recovery Satisfaction Judgments: A Cognitive-Affective Perspective

The present study places the formation of recovery satisfaction judgments in a cultural context and empirically assesses their susceptibility to cultural moderation. Specifically, the study investigates whether an individual consumer’s cultural value orientation along the Hofstede dimensions of individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term/short-term orientation moderates the cognitive-affective relationships that underlie the formation of recovery satisfaction judgments. Using a cross-sectional survey design, the study’s findings indicate that these cognitive-affective relationships are indeed subject to cultural moderation. Specifically, the findings document that individuals’ cultural value orientations significantly influence the impact of the cognitive (i.e., perceived justice-based) and affective (i.e., emotion-based) antecedents to recovery satisfaction. This supports the notion that conceptually accurate models of recovery satisfaction formation should incorporate culture as a moderating influence. Importantly, however, cultural moderation explains only an additional 2% to 4% of the variance in recovery satisfaction in the present study and none of the variance in positive/negative emotions. Accordingly, the managerial significance of variations in individuals’ cultural value orientations appears to be only minor, and firms may not necessarily stand a much better chance of implementing more appropriate recovery actions if they are sensitive to cultural differences in their customer base.

Factors Influencing the Acceptance of Self-Service Technologies: A Meta-Analysis

To facilitate efficient and effective service delivery, firms are introducing self-service technologies (SSTs) at an increasing pace. This article presents a meta-analysis of the factors influencing customer acceptance of SSTs. The authors develop a comprehensive causal framework that integrates constructs and relationships from different technology acceptance theories, and they use the framework to guide their meta-analysis of findings consolidated from 96 previous empirical articles (representing 117 independent customer samples with a cumulative sample size of 103,729 respondents). The meta-analysis reveals the following key insights: (1) SST usage is influenced in a complex fashion by numerous predictors that should be examined jointly; (2) ease of use and usefulness are key mediators, and studies ignoring them may underestimate the importance of some predictors; (3) several determinants of usefulness impact ease of use, and vice versa, thereby revealing crossover effects not previously revealed; and (4) the links leading up to SST acceptance in the proposed framework are moderated by SST type (transaction/self-help, kiosk/Internet, public/private, hedonic/utilitarian) and country culture (power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance). Results from the meta-analysis offer managerial guidance for effective implementation of SSTs and provide directions for further research to augment current knowledge of SST acceptance.

The determinants and consequences of consumer trust in online environments: an exploratory investigation

In the relatively new world of e-commerce in consumer markets, managing customer relationships across new channels presents a significant challenge in terms of understanding the antecedent conditions for developing buyer-seller relationships in online environments. Consumer trust in e-retailers has recently been acknowledged as having a role to play in determining the likelihood of using the internet for purchasing. Without building and maintaining trust between consumers and e-retailers, the development of the internet as an e-commerce medium in mass markets is unlikely to reach its full potential. This exploratory study presents and tests a model describing the relationship between the determinants and consequences of consumer trust in online environments.

Extending Service Brands into Products Versus Services: Multilevel Analyses of Key Success Drivers

Purpose This paper aims to provide an empirical investigation into extension category effects on service brand extensions, both to other services (service–service extensions) and to products (service–product extensions), and the extension category’s influence on brand/consumer-level success drivers, as well as the perceived quality of the extension. Design/methodology/approach This study included an empirical testing of a conceptual framework using a hierarchical linear modeling approach and testing of hypotheses with a multilevel regression analysis. The data set consisted of 216 respondents reporting on both product and service extensions. Data were collected on three levels, namely, consumer level, parent brand level and extension level. Findings The findings indicate a general and consistent extension category-dependent effect that moderates the importance of brand extension success drivers. The influence of parent brand reliance and perceived parent brand quality were found to have stronger effects, whereas parent brand conviction was weaker in the context of service-to-service extensions. Research limitations/implications The study focuses on two brands with four extensions. Further research could replicate the study with a broader range of brands and extensions. Practical implications The study provides guidance to service managers to enhance consumers’ extension evaluations through better-positioned communication efforts when extending to different categories. Originality/value The study is one of the first empirical investigations into category-extension effects and its moderating role regarding brand and consumer level success drivers. Sparse research has been dedicated to a real-world occurrence of services extending between extension categories; this study thus furthers service brand research in terms of brand management decisions.