Michael D. Giebelhausen

Touch Versus Tech: When Technology Functions as a Barrier or a Benefit to Service Encounters

Interpersonal exchanges between customers and frontline service employees increasingly involve the use of technology, such as point-of-sale terminals, tablets, and kiosks. The present research draws on role and script theories to demonstrate that customer reactions to technology-infused service exchanges depend on the presence of employee rapport. When rapport is present during the exchange, the use of technology functions as an interpersonal barrier preventing the customer from responding in kind to employee rapport-building efforts, thereby decreasing service encounter evaluations. However, during service encounters in which employees are not engaging in rapport building, technology functions as an interpersonal barrier, enabling customers to retreat from the relatively unpleasant service interaction, thereby increasing service encounter evaluations. Two analyses using J.D. Power Guest Satisfaction Index data support the barrier and beneficial effects of technology use during service encounters with and without rapport, respectively. A follow-up experiment replicates this data pattern and identifies psychological discomfort as a key process that governs the effect. For managers, the results demonstrate the inherent incompatibility of initiatives designed to encourage employee–customer rapport with those that introduce technology into frontline service exchanges.

Reversing the Green Backlash in Services: Credible Competitors Help Large Companies Go Green

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to first demonstrate a “green backlash” effect whereby evaluations of a large service organization decrease after the organization announces a new green practice and second, explore how the presence of green competitors might moderate this effect.Design/methodology/approach – The approach includes one exploratory in‐depth interview study and three follow‐up experiments.Findings – The results indicate that consumers percieve large companies to be lacking in credibility and that when a large service organization announces the adoption of a green practice, evaluations of that firm may actually decrease, i.e. a green backlash. Additionally, it is observed that the opposite is true when consumers are aware of a credibly green competitor. In these circumstances, large players are significantly worse off if they do not also adopt green practices. Initially it was hypothesized that the large company would need to imitate the credibly green competitor. However, the results...

Adjusting the Warm-Glow Thermostat: How Incentivizing Participation in Voluntary Green Programs Moderates Their Impact on Service Satisfaction

In Study 1, the authors find that people are more satisfied with a service experience when they choose to participate in the providers voluntary green program (e.g., recycling)—an effect mediated by the “warm glow” of participation. The downside, however, is that this same mechanism decreases satisfaction among people who choose not to participate. In Study 2, analysis of data from the J.D. Power Guest Satisfaction Index suggests that incentivizing the program (i.e., compensating the program participants) paradoxically increases satisfaction for those who do not participate but decreases satisfaction among those who do. Studies 3 and 4 explore how manipulating incentive characteristics might enable managers to maximize satisfaction for both groups. Study 3 indicates that, compared with no incentive, an “other-benefiting” incentive increases warm glow and satisfaction for green program participants but decreases them among nonparticipants. Study 4, however, suggests that mixed incentive bundles (i.e., providing both self-benefiting and other-benefiting options) maximize warm glow and satisfaction for both groups—the ideal outcome for managers.

Clothing Color and Tipping An Attempted Replication and Extension

An online, hypothetical, tipping-scenario experiment found that subjects tipped the servers less (not more) when those servers wore a red shirt than when they wore a white or black one and that female subjects perceived a waiter (but not a waitress) as less attractive when wearing a red shirt than when wearing a white or black shirt. These findings are opposite those in the existing literature and suggest that the earlier findings are less generalizable than previously believed and that the process underlying previous clothing color effects on tipping may not be precisely what the researchers thought it was. Possible explanations of the discrepant findings are discussed along with directions for future research and practical implications.

The Warm Glow of Restaurant Checkout Charity

Checkout charity is a phenomenon whereby frontline employees (or self-service technologies) solicit charitable donations from customers during the payment process. Despite its growing ubiquity, little is known about this salient aspect of the service experience. The present research examines checkout charity in the context of fast-food restaurants and finds that, when customers donate, they experience a “warm glow” that mediates a relationship between donating and store repatronage. Study 1 utilizes three scenario-based experiments to explore the phenomenon across different charities and different participant populations using both self-selection and random assignment designs. Study 2 replicates with a field study. Study 3 examines national store–level sales data from a fast-food chain and finds that checkout fund-raising, as a percentage of sales, predicts store revenue—a finding consistent with results of Studies 1 and 2. Managers often infer, quite correctly, that many consumers do not like being asked to donate. Paradoxically, our results suggest this ostensibly negative experience can increase service repatronage. For academics, these results add to a growing body of literature refuting the notion that small prosocial acts affect behavior by altering an individual’s self-concept.

Negative Moderating Effect of General Self-Efficacy on the Relationship between Need for Cognition and Cognitive Effort

This study demonstrates the negative moderating effect of general self-efficacy on the relationship between need for cognition, which refers to stable individual differences in peoples tendencies to engage in and enjoy cognitive activity, and cognitive effort. This negative moderating effect of general self-efficacy has been termed “plasticity.” Scholars assume the relationship between need for cognition and cognitive effort is true by definition. The study uses data from 144 U.S. college students and employs moderated regression analysis followed by subgroup analysis to demonstrate plasticity. The results set a boundary condition to the generally presumed relationship between need for cognition and cognitive effort, thereby improving the understanding of how these phenomena are related.

Replicating and Extending Our Understanding of How Managers Can Adjust the “Warm Glow Thermostat”

This article presents four studies that replicate and extend a recent article examining how guest participation in voluntary green programs (e.g., towel reuse) increases service satisfaction by evoking a “warm glow” response. Importantly for managers, we not only replicate across new hospitality and service contexts but also conceptualize alternative incentive paradigms, and test alternative mediators. In particular, we reconceptualize the “self-benefiting” versus “other-benefiting” incentive structure presented by Giebelhausen, Chun, Cronin, and Hult to consider “virtue,” “vice,” and “cash” incentives (i.e., three different types of self-benefiting incentives). The results provide managers with a better understanding of how they should promote and reward sustainable guest behavior. In addition to managerial implications, the present research also contributes to the academic literature on a growing phenomenon that has important implications for both business and society at large.