How gun control policies influence consumers’ service business evaluations
ISSN: 0887-6045
Article publication date: 10 January 2022
Issue publication date: 19 October 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Given the growing prevalence of gun control policies in service settings, this study aims to investigate how the adoption of a gun control policy by a service business influences consumers’ evaluations of the service business.
Design/methodology/approach
Three experiments were conducted to examine how the adoption of a gun control policy by a service business influences consumers’ brand favorability of that service business and how value congruence (i.e. the alignment between a consumer’s own personal values and perceptions of the brand’s values) is the underlying mechanism.
Findings
This study documents several major findings. First, the authors find that the adoption of a gun control policy by a service business increases consumers’ brand favorability. Second, the authors highlight a boundary condition to this effect, such that a gun control policy actually decreases consumers’ brand favorability for people high (vs low) in support for gun rights. Third, the authors show that value congruence is the psychological process underlying these effects. Fourth, the authors generalize the focal effects to a real-world brand and demonstrate that the adoption of a gun control policy increases brand favorability for consumers low (vs high) in patronage behavior of the brand. Finally, the authors find that a pioneer brand strategy in the adoption of a gun control policy significantly increases brand favorability, whereas a follower brand strategy in the adoption of such a policy is less effective.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to provide critical insight to service businesses as to how their position regarding guns influences consumers’ evaluations of the service business.
Keywords
Citation
Cabano, F.G., Attari, A. and Minton, E.A. (2022), "How gun control policies influence consumers’ service business evaluations", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 8, pp. 1031-1041. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-05-2021-0186
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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