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Chatbots are increasingly used in online retail settings and are becoming a powerful tool for brands to engage customers. However, consumers’ satisfaction with these chatbots is mixed. Thus, this paper aims to investigate how using a social- versus task-oriented anthropomorphic communication style can improve customer satisfaction.

The authors explore the link between the anthropomorphic communication style use and customer perceptions/customer satisfaction in online customer service interactions. Two experiment scenarios were developed to test these links.

Overall, using a social-oriented communication style boosts customer satisfaction. Warmth perception of the chatbot mediates this effect, while chatbot’s anthropomorphised role (servant versus partner) moderates this effect.

This paper enriches the bilateral communication literature by extending the investigation on communication style effects to chatbot service interactions and revealing the psychological process driving the impacts. It also adds to the existing literature on chatbots as a customer service and contributes to the prominent topic examining how consumers react to artificial intelligence that is used to establish and maintain a relationship with them. Additionally, the authors also make contribution to the warmth and competence literature by demonstrating that customers can interpret social cues in chatbot service interactions mainly based on the warmth dimension. Thus, the authors further add to the growing chatbot humanness perception literature and respond to the calls for investigating more anthropomorphic design cues to enhance chatbot humanness. Finally, the authors also provide a way to help reconcile seemingly conflicting prior findings.

This study examines the mediation effects of leaders' communication competency in the link between leadership styles (i.e. servant and transactional leadership) and employees' work engagement.

Cross-sectional survey data from 392 employees in 33 hotels in Bangladesh were collected. To analyze the data, structural equation modeling was adopted, and partial least squares (PLS) analysis was used.

Results of PLS analysis revealed that servant leaders and leaders' communication competency positively influence employees' work engagement. In boosting employees' work engagement, communication competency is an important tool for servant leadership but not for transactional leadership.

Hoteliers and managers may want to adopt a servant leadership style and develop effective leadership communication skills to increase employees' engagement at work.

This study introduces communication competency as a mediating mechanism between leadership styles and work engagement in the hospitality industry.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is experiencing growth and prosperity worldwide because of its convenience and other benefits. However, AI faces challenges related to consumer resistance. Thus, drawing on the user resistance theory, this study explores factors that influence consumers’ resistance to AI and suggests ways to mitigate this negative influence.

This study tested four hypotheses across four studies by conducting lab experiments. Study 1 used a questionnaire to verify the hypothesis that AI’s “substitute” image leads to consumer resistance to AI; Study 2 focused on the role of perceived threat as an underlying driver of resistance to AI. Studies 3–4 provided process evidence by the way of a measured moderator, testing whether AI with servant communication style and literal language style is resisted less.

This study showed that AI’s “substitute” image increased users' resistance to AI. This occurs because the substitute image increases consumers’ perceived threat. The study also found that using servant communication and literal language styles in the interaction between AI and consumers can mitigate the negative effects of AI-substituted images.

This study reveals the mechanism of action between AI image and consumers’ resistance and sheds light on how to choose appropriate image and expression styles for AI products, which is important for lowering consumer resistance to AI.

The purpose of this study is to extend Bippus and Young’s (2005) study and examine the effectiveness of the “I-you,” “I,” “You,” “We,” “But” and Question-based “Why” statements from Winer’s (2021) verbal coding program of conflict management using Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory (SLT).

Mixed methods were used using 175 university students from Texas and New York. A cross-sectional convenience sampling approach was conducted. Survey data was collected using Qualtrics.

Descriptive results demonstrated that the “We” statement was the most passive, the “I-you” statement was the most assertive and the “But,” “I,” “You” and Question statements were perceived to be aggressive. In addition, assertive “I-You” statements were perceived to be more effective in resolving the conflict and maintaining a relationship, whereas aggressive statements were less likely to resolve the conflict and maintain the relationship. Qualitative themes also support the “I-You” statement as the most assertive, while the “But,” “You” and “I” statements were found to be the most aggressive statements.

Implications and applications are discussed to stimulate future research among researchers and practitioners when addressing conflict. Being aware of the verbal statements that de-escalate conflict may be helpful in solving conflict in interpersonal, family and professional relationships. Future trainings can adopt effective verbal statements to resolve conflict when experiencing anger issues. Future research can continue to investigate verbal communication statements using SLT to help practitioners and managers address conflict in interpersonal relationships.

This study examines verbal statements in relation to communication styles and conflict management.

Based on stimulus-organism-response theory, this study aims to explore how digital service communication strategies affected customers’ e-service agent use intentions through perceived warmth and competence.

A 2 × 2 scenario-based experiment was conducted to test the proposed relationships.

Findings indicated when a high-authority conversation party was engaged in digital service communications, customers showed higher e-service agent use intentions through perceived warmth and competence in an emoji-presence conversation style.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the effects of digital service communication strategies on customers’ internal and behavioral responses.

基于刺激-有机体-反应理论, 本研究探讨了数字服务沟通策略如何通过感知亲切和感知能力的方式影响了顾客对电子服务代理的使用意愿。

本研究进行了一项基于2x2情境的实验, 以测试所提出的关系。

研究结果表明, 当高权威的对话方参与数字服务沟通时, 顾客在表情存在的对话风格中通过亲切和能力的认知表现出更高的电子服务代理使用意愿。

本研究调查了对话方和对话方式作为数字服务沟通策略在顾客-数字服务互动中的影响。

本研究是第一个探讨数字服务沟通策略对顾客内部和行为反应影响的研究。

Given the growing relationship between Nigeria and the USA, the purpose of this study is to compare conflict communication of Nigerians and Americans.

A total of 186 Nigerians and 214 Americans completed an online survey of Hammer’s (2005) Intercultural Conflict Style Inventory as well as items about the effect of conflict on team collaboration.

Contrary to expectations, Nigerians reported using more direct, whereas Americans reported using more indirect, communication when confronting conflict despite the stereotype that Americans are typically direct or more likely to say what is on their minds. However, consistent with expectations, Nigerians reported exercising more emotional restraint, whereas Americans favored the use of emotional expressiveness in conflict.

Overall, Nigerians were more concerned than Americans about the negative effect of conflict on team collaboration in the workplace. This concern was associated with the use of directness, indirectness and emotional restraint. Further, an exploratory structural equation model showed that the use of emotional expression was affected, in different ways, by several aspects of work and communication. Implications of these results are discussed along with directions for future research.

This study develops a computational method to investigate the predominant language styles in political discussions on Twitter and their connections with users' online characteristics.

This study gathers a large Twitter dataset comprising political discussions across various topics from general users. It utilizes an unsupervised machine learning algorithm with pre-defined language features to detect language styles in political discussions on Twitter. Furthermore, it employs a multinomial model to explore the relationships between language styles and users' online characteristics.

Through the analysis of over 700,000 political tweets, this study identifies six language styles: mobilizing, self-expressive, argumentative, narrative, analytic and informational. Furthermore, by investigating the covariation between language styles and users' online characteristics, such as social connections, expressive desires and gender, this study reveals a preference for an informational style and an aversion to an argumentative style in political discussions. It also uncovers gender differences in language styles, with women being more likely to belong to the mobilizing group but less likely to belong to the analytic and informational groups.

This study provides insights into the psychological mechanisms and social statuses of users who adopt particular language styles. It assists political communicators in understanding their audience and tailoring their language to suit specific contexts and communication objectives.

This study reveals gender differences in language styles, suggesting that women may have a heightened desire for social support in political discussions. It highlights that traditional gender disparities in politics might persist in online public spaces.

This study develops a computational methodology by combining cluster analysis with pre-defined linguistic features to categorize language styles. This approach integrates statistical algorithms with communication and linguistic theories, providing researchers with an unsupervised method for analyzing textual data. It focuses on detecting language styles rather than topics or themes in the text, complementing widely used text classification methods such as topic modeling. Additionally, this study explores the associations between language styles and the online characteristics of social media users in a political context.

Drawing on the dual process theory and the cultural dimension of power distance, the current research investigates the impact of a specific service clue—the linguistic style of address forms (salutation) in hotel manager letters to guests—on customer satisfaction in a hotel context in Ecuador.

Following an experimental design research approach, this research conducted a series of two studies to examine how customers' cultural values (high vs low power distance), linguistic style of address forms (formal vs casual) and service valence (service success vs service failure) together influenced customer satisfaction. Specifically, Study 1 examined the service success condition, and Study 2 investigated the service failure condition.

The research results show that, in the service success condition, customers follow their distinct cultural orientations (high vs low power distance) when responding to the different linguistic styles (formal vs casual). On the other hand, in the service failure situation, as customers desire for expressions of respect that can be reflected in a formal address form, the level of satisfaction is lower when the casual address form is used in guest communications, regardless of customers' cultural orientations in power distance.

This research adds to existing cross-cultural service research, particularly in terms of service valence, and provides practical implications for enhancing service providers' cultural awareness and sociolinguistic competence to effectively communicate with customers from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Given resource constraints such as time and staffing, hotels cannot respond to all negative online reviews (NORs). Therefore, this study investigates (1) what types of NORs hotels should prioritize responding; and (2) what response strategies are more effective in handling different types of NORs to minimize the negative ramifications.

Four experiments in the context of hospitability were used to test the hypotheses.

Our findings show that NORs with implicit conclusions (e.g. “I do not believe that is a good choice, you know what I mean.”) are more dissuasive than NORs with explicit ones (e.g. “Do not buy it.”) because the former NORs are perceived as more objective than the latter NORs. More importantly, our results show that firms do not need to respond to explicit NORs. When responding to implicit NORs, firms should prioritize those related to service failures caused by external (e.g. weather, technological misfunction) rather than internal (e.g. poor management, employee skills) factors.

Our studies focus on the language styles of Chinese NORs, and future research should investigate how language styles influence dissuasion in other languages.

Our results show that NORs with implicit conclusions negatively impact consumer attitude and thus hurt performance more significantly than those with explicit conclusions. Therefore, firms should allocate limited staffing and resources to NORs with implicit conclusions. When responding to implicit NORs, firms should select NORs that can be attributed to external factors.

Our findings shed light on the importance of the language styles of NORs and provide marketers with insights into how to handle NORs. Our results reveal that consumers perceive higher objectivity of NORs when these reviews are implicit than when they are explicit. Furthermore, this study contributes to the online review literature by suggesting that firms should tailor their response strategies for NORs based on the reviewers’ language styles.