William T. Ross

The Role of Attributions in Customer Satisfaction: A Reexamination

We investigate the role of disconfirmation, responsibility, and stability attributions in the formation of satisfaction judgments. Building on the valence-expectancy framework, we find that disconfirmation and attributions impact satisfaction in a complex manner. Besides its main effect, responsibility moderates disconfirmations effect on satisfaction, manifested as a two-way interaction between the two. Disconfirmation and responsibility jointly determine the valence component, and stability determines the expectancy component of the satisfaction evaluation. This is consistent with the three-way interaction among stability, responsibility, and disconfirmation that we also find. These results clarify past studies and provide new insights about the relationship among the constructs.

Compound Relationships Between Firms

In this article, the authors introduce the idea of a compound relationship; that is, for many pairs of firms, the overall relationship between the two firms is composed of multiple simple relationships: supplier to customer, and vice versa; competitor to competitor; and partners. This multiplicity of relationships can lead to both opportunities and challenges for each of the two firms in the dyad. The authors define the nature of compound relationships and delineate why it is important for the firm to treat them as such rather than focusing only on the simple relationships. They distinguish compound relationships from social networks and simple dyadic relationships and relate the construct to exchange theory, “coopetition,” and the interorganizational relationship literature in marketing. They then use the political economy framework to develop a set of conceptual propositions that apply to many aspects of compound relationships. They end with some speculations regarding the appropriate management of compound relationships and propose opportunities for further research.

How Inferences about Missing Attributes Decrease the Tendency to Defer Choice and Increase Purchase Probability

Most purchases involve choices among options with incomplete attribute information. In such situations, consumers often have the option not to choose any of the alternatives to avoid uncertainty. Alternatively, consumers can make inferences about the missing attributes. These inferences may occur spontaneously, or they may be strategically prompted. In five studies, it is shown that both explicitly and implicitly prompting consumers to make inferences about the missing attributes reduces the tendency to select the no-choice option and increases the likelihood of making a purchase decision. In parallel, consumers who generate spontaneous inferences are also less likely to defer their choices.

The Role of Issue Valence and Issue Capability in Determining Effort Investment

How decision makers invest their effort among various issues is critical to organizational success (Ocasio 1997). The authors investigate the effects of issue valence and issue capability on how decision makers allocate effort to an issue. They develop hypotheses regarding these constructs and test them in three studies. Results show that in the condition of high capability, decision makers are more likely to invest effort in an issue that is negatively, rather than positively, framed. Conversely, with low capability, they are more likely to invest effort in an issue that is positively, rather than negatively, framed. Results also clarify the variable focus on upside potential and risk taking as two mechanisms that underlie this preference reversal.

How and When Alphanumeric Brand Names Affect Consumer Preferences

This research develops a taxonomy of alphanumeric brand names (ABs) based on the alignment between the brand names and their links to products and attributes. Five empirical studies reveal that ABs have systematic effects on consumers’ product choices, moderated by consumers’ need for cognition, the availability of product attribute information, and the taxonomic category of the AB. In an identical choice set, the choice share of a product option whose brand name takes a higher versus lower numeric portion (e.g., X-200 versus X-100) increases, and it is preferred more even when it is objectively inferior to other choice alternatives. Consumers with low need for cognition use “the higher, the better” heuristic to select options labeled with ABs and choose brands with higher numeric portions. Consumers with high need for cognition process ABs more systematically and make inferences about attribute values based on brand name–attribute correlations. The effects of ABs on consumer preferences are prevalent for most technical products, even when consumers do not know the product category or meanings of attributes.

I'm Moral, But I Won't Help You: The Distinct Roles of Empathy and Justice in Donations

Donating to charitable causes is generally perceived as a moral, prosocial behavior, but this may not always be the case. Although moral identity tends to have a positive effect on prosocial behavior, moral identity does not unconditionally enhance charitable giving. Four studies demonstrate that moral identity decreases donations when recipients are responsible for their plight. Mediation analysis reveals that empathy and justice underlie these effects such that moral identity increases donations for recipients with low plight responsibility through increased empathy, but moral identity decreases donations to recipients with high plight responsibility due to perceptions of justice. Importantly, donations to recipients who are responsible for their plight can be enhanced when donors immorality is made salient, evoking empathy for recipients, particularly among donors with high moral identity. This research makes theoretical contributions in addition to providing implications for nonprofit organizations whose recipients may be perceived as responsible for their plight.

Commitment and Its Consequences in the American Agency System of Selling Insurance

INTRODUCTION The American Agency system of selling insurance, whereby independent agents represent multiple insurers and own the rights to the expirations of the policies they sell, has been the object of much criticism and has come under competitive pressure from alternative means of distributing insurance. In response, some elements of the insurance industry have experimented with forging committed relationships with agents as a means to stay within the independent agency system while achieving better results. Commitment building is an effort by principals (here, insurers) to bind agents (here, independent insurance agents who own the rights to expirations) to them so tightly as to blur the distinction between the principal and the agent. At the limit, the relationship is so close that no party (insurer, agent, or policyholder) is entirely sure that the principal is not vertically integrated. This idea (that the principal can be technically using a market mechanism but enjoy most of the benefits of vertical integration) has attracted considerable attention. A very large literature spanning several fields (including multiple sub-disciplines of business) has developed and has collectively examined two questions: (1) do committed relationships really generate economic, as opposed to solely psychological, benefits and, if so, to whom, and (2) how can a firm create a committed relationship? This study examines both questions and does so in the context of the insurance industry in the United States. The argument made here is that one way for insurers to realize the full benefits of distribution through agents is to cultivate commitment from their independent agents. On the surface, this idea might appear impractical. This study uses a large primary data set collected from pairs of insurers and their agents, each member of the pair supplying confidential information about itself, its counterpart, and their relationship. Using this dyadic data, it is demonstrated that it is possible to build extremely high levels of commitment. However, it requires investments in the relationship that mature over relatively long periods of time and continuing attention and effort devoted to the relationship. Do committed players get anything for their commitment? This study demonstrates that both committed agents and committed insurers report more profits. Further, committed insurers are able to command a substantially higher share of the committed agents volume. It has been argued within the insurance industry that this is a path to reducing future loss ratios suffered by the insurer. If so, commitment would appear to have a significant influence on future losses. This paper is organized as follows. The following section discusses the literature on the advantages and drawbacks of the American Agency system and on close relationships as a general phenomenon. A framework is proposed delineating conditions under which agents and/or insurers will commit to each other. Effects of commitment on economic performance are also proposed. The next section details how a large primary dyadic data set was collected and presents the results of estimating a system of equations in four endogenous variables representing commitment in an insurer-independent agent dyad. Three performance models are also estimated. The final section discusses the results and their limitations, and compares them to related research in the literature of close relationships. Insurance agents are demonstrated to be driven by the same general factors that influence many other kinds of agents (e.g., industrial distributors), as well as to be strongly influenced by concern about the insurers commitment to the basic principle of selling its insurance via independent agents which own the expirations. Insurers are shown to be very attentive to financial considerations. Both parties appear to derive benefit from their arrangement, although the insurers benefit is more difficult to ascertain and is strongly tied to the vagaries of the future. …

How Commitment Influences the Termination of B2B Exchange Relationships

Commitment is a key construct determining relationship outcomes, especially in B2B relationships. However, the processes by which commitment affects relationship outcomes—specifically likelihood to terminate a B2B relationship—are not well understood. Using a number of decision-process models, we propose three mechanisms by which commitment influences supplier termination. We suggest that commitment may (a) curtail search, (b) bias supplier evaluation, or (c) curtail action. These are tested using an experimental study as well as a survey. Convergent findings from both studies demonstrate that a combination of all three processes is involved in determining how commitment affects termination likelihood.