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1 – 10 of over 30000Mathieu Lajante, Riadh Ladhari and Elodie Massa
Research on the role of affective forecasting in hotel service experiences is in its infancy, and several crucial questions remain unanswered. This study aims to posit that…
Abstract
Purpose
Research on the role of affective forecasting in hotel service experiences is in its infancy, and several crucial questions remain unanswered. This study aims to posit that affective forecasting is a significant antecedent of customers’ affective reactions during a hotel stay. The authors investigate how customers’ service quality expectations influence their affective forecasting and how customers’ affective forecasting before an upcoming hotel service experience influences their affective reactions during the hotel service experience.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected data through online questionnaires distributed among 634 US adults who had stayed at a hotel within the past month.
Findings
The results show that: service quality expectations influence affective forecasting; affective forecasting influences affective reactions; service quality expectations influence perceived service quality, thereby influencing affective reactions and affective reactions and service quality perception influence electronic Word-Of-Mouth intentions.
Practical implications
The study suggests that hotel managers should identify what hotel performance attributes customers value most and depict how these attributes elicit positive affective reactions in advertising to influence customers’ purchase decisions.
Originality/value
This is one of the few studies to investigate the antecedents and consequences of affective forecasting in hotel service experiences.
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David Vidal, Hervé Fenneteau and Gilles Paché
This paper aims to develop a framework helping managers to understand reactions, adopting the supplier perspective, and starting from the idea that the outcome of the degradation…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a framework helping managers to understand reactions, adopting the supplier perspective, and starting from the idea that the outcome of the degradation process is mainly determined by customers’ reactions. Inter-organisational relationships are sometimes subject to degradation. When incidents arise, and relationship attractiveness decreases, its evolution becomes uncertain.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study carried out with a large French industrial company (FabIndus) specialised in the production of supplies destined to a large variety of business sectors. In all, 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff members of FabIndus and clients’ representatives identified as having recently been confronted with deterioration in their relationship.
Findings
The paper finds that customers’ reactions vary according to the nature of the business relationship and the customer commitment when degradation begins. Using two types of commitment and the exit–voice–loyalty–neglect model, it is possible to identify four types of reactions in the situation of the deterioration of a relationship. For each one of the reactions, the paper defines the response strategy that suppliers may take on.
Originality/value
The paper underlines the importance of a segmented view of business behaviours faced with the deterioration of a relationship. This can be helpful to elaborate differentiated response strategies, to avoid mutual misunderstandings.
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Amin Nazifi, Dahlia El-Manstrly, Angela Tregear and Kristina Auxtova
This paper empirically examines the direct and indirect effects of perceived termination severity on customers' behavioral reactions via betrayal and justice. It also examines the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper empirically examines the direct and indirect effects of perceived termination severity on customers' behavioral reactions via betrayal and justice. It also examines the moderating effects of attitude toward complaining (ATC).
Design/methodology/approach
This paper employs a quantitative method approach using a scenario-based experiment in a banking setting.
Findings
The results show that a more severe termination approach results in higher customer negative reactions. Betrayal is shown to be a key driver of customers' behavioral reactions, and ATC moderates these effects.
Research limitations/implications
Future studies should examine the effects of different termination strategies in markedly different cultures and should also examine other boundary conditions such as prior warning, relationship quality and service importance in influencing customers' negative behavioral responses.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the service termination literature by shedding light on the impact of termination severity on customers' reactions. It also unveils the mechanism that explains customers' reactions to service termination. Further, it reveals that ATC moderates customers' public (but not private) complaining behaviors.
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Divya Mittal and Shiv Ratan Agrawal
The purpose of this paper is to identify the traditional practices in the modern banking system (MBS) and examine the effects of these on employee response, customer reactions and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the traditional practices in the modern banking system (MBS) and examine the effects of these on employee response, customer reactions and customer loyalty, in the context of public sector banks in India. The study also investigates the effects on customers of employees’ use of traditional banking practices in the MBS.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 460 usable responses were gathered from customers of seven public sector banks in Bhopal (MP), India. The study scales were refined and validated by exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.
Findings
The results indicated that the MBS utilising traditional practices (MBSTP) significantly influences unfavourable employee responses, customer reactions and loyalty. In addition, employee responses in MBSTP motivate and generate unfavourable reactions of customers, which further influence their loyalty adversely towards public sector banks.
Practical implications
The identified traditional practices with MBS are expected to bring clarity to the issue of employee response, customer reaction and loyalty. This would help the management of banks.
Originality/value
The results of the analysis indicated that public sector banking services are facing the internal challenges by its own service processes and employees’ behavioural intentions.
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Iddo Gal, Dana Yagil and Gil Luria
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on service quality and value co-creation and co-destruction by unpacking the phenomenon described as “difficult…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on service quality and value co-creation and co-destruction by unpacking the phenomenon described as “difficult customers”, which has many associated costs for service organizations. The paper examines how frontline service employees make sense of and react to client behaviors that disrupt service processes.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a qualitative study with 128 frontline workers, who were interviewed about their perceptions, explanations and reactions to problem-related customers, using a sensemaking perspective.
Findings
Content analysis revealed 17 themes related to workers' perceptions, explanations and reactions to problem-related customers. Workers classify behaviors of problem-related customers in terms exceeding the single notion of intentionality that dominates the literature, instead referring to the degree of both controllability and malevolence of customers. Service workers choose a wide range of behavioral reactions that have not been studied before.
Research limitations/implications
A convenience sample, although large, limits generalizability. Suggestions for future quantitative research are proposed.
Practical implications
Based on the findings, the authors suggest specific directions related to managerial policy and organizational practices related to training and employee empowerment and service recovery routines.
Originality/value
The study introduces a new theoretical notion of “problem-related customers”, set within a value co-creation context. It presents findings that enable deeper understanding of the emotional and behavioral reactions of frontline workers to service disruptions and offers multiple scholarly contributions, new research directions and managerial insights that can help to improve service recovery and service quality
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Chia-Ching Tsai, Yung-Kai Yang and Yu-Chi Cheng
The purpose of this paper is to examine how service failure affects customers’ negative response and how service recovery affects perceived justice in the context of different…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how service failure affects customers’ negative response and how service recovery affects perceived justice in the context of different relationship norms.
Design/methodology/approach
It includes four studies that examine how relationships influence customer reactions to service failures. In study 1, the paper examines how service failures affect customers’ negative reaction. In study 2, the paper examines how service recoveries influence perceived justice. Study 3 and study 4 test the robustness of the results of study 1 and study 2. All studies have a 2×2 between-subjects design.
Findings
The results show that individuals in exchange relationships experience a stronger feeling of betrayal than those in communal relationships during service failures. Further, individuals feel more betrayed and show greater negative responses during process failures. They perceive greater justice when offered physical recoveries, which, in turn, contributes to higher service-recovery satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
This study was conducted in Taiwan. Customer reactions to service failures may vary according to cultural and environmental contexts.
Practical implications
Service providers are encouraged to cultivate relationships with customers and identify different types of customers to compensate them more effectively, according to their preferences.
Originality/value
This study introduces relationship norms to investigate consumer responses to service failures. The main contributions are twofold; it investigates the effect of relationship norms on customer responses to service-failure types and service-recovery types.
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This paper aims to demonstrate that online complainants’ reactions to a company’s service recovery attempts (webcare) can significantly vary across two different types of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to demonstrate that online complainants’ reactions to a company’s service recovery attempts (webcare) can significantly vary across two different types of dissatisfied customers (“vindictives” vs “constructives”), who have dramatically diverging complaint goal orientations.
Design/methodology/approach
Online multi-country survey among 812 adult consumers who recently had a dissatisfying brand experience and turned to a marketer-generated social media site to voice an online complaint for achieving their ultimate complaining goals. Scenario-based online experiment for cross-validating the survey findings.
Findings
Results suggest that “vindictive complainants” – driven dominantly by brand-adverse motives – are immune to any form of webcare, while “constructive complainants” – interested in restoring the customer-brand relationship – react more sensitively. For the latter, “no-responses” often trigger detrimental brand-related reactions (e.g. unfavorable brand image), whereas “defensive responses” are likely to stimulate post-webcare negative word-of-mouth.
Research limitations/implications
This research identifies the gains and harms of (un-)desired webcare. By doing so, it not only sheds light on the circumstances when marketers have to fear negative effects (e.g. negative word-of-mouth) but also provides insights into the conditions when such effects are unlikely. While the findings of the cross-sectional survey are validated with an online experiment, findings should be interpreted with care as other complaining contexts should be further investigated.
Practical implications
Marketers have to expect a serious “backfiring effect” from an unexpected source, namely, consumers who were initially benevolent toward the involved brand but who received an inappropriate response.
Originality/value
This research is one of the first research studies that enables marketers to identify situations when webcare is likely to backfire on the brand after a service failure.
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Juan M. Madera, Priyanko Guchait and Mary Dawson
The purpose of this paper is to examine how managers react to sexual harassment as a function of the harasser role that includes a customer as a source of harassment and an…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how managers react to sexual harassment as a function of the harasser role that includes a customer as a source of harassment and an organization’s climate for sexual harassment.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an experiment with a 2 (harasser role: coworker or customer) × 2 (organizational climate of sexual harassment: tolerates or does not tolerate) between-subjects design, 162 hotel managers were randomly assigned to read one of four conditions.
Findings
Both the harasser role and organization’s climate for sexual harassment influenced the managers’ sexual harassment reactions, specifically whether they label the incident as sexual harassment and attribute responsibility to the organization. The managers’ gender was found to moderate these relationships.
Practical implications
The results underscore the importance of understanding reactions to sexual harassment because, regardless of who harasses (coworker or customer) and the organizational climate (tolerates or does not tolerate sexual harassment), sexual harassment of any form can be harmful for the well-being of hospitality employees. These results also provide educational implications.
Originality/value
This is the first known experimental study to examine how hospitality managers react to sexual harassment when the harasser role includes a customer versus a coworker. The results illustrate that the same sexually harassing behavior was perceived less negatively – in regard to both the labeling and attribution of organizational responsibility – when it was done by a customer than by a coworker.
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Yetaotao Qiu and Michel Magnan
This paper investigates the effects of layoff announcement by customers on the valuation and operating performance of their supply chain partners.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper investigates the effects of layoff announcement by customers on the valuation and operating performance of their supply chain partners.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collect corporate layoff announcements from 8-K filings submitted by US publicly-traded firms from 2004 to 2017. Using event study methodology, they examine the information externality of corporate layoffs on announcing firms' suppliers.
Findings
Results show that suppliers, on average, experience a negative stock price reaction around their major customers' layoff announcements. The negative price effect is exacerbated when industry rivals of layoff-announcing customers also suffer from negative intra-industry contagion effects. Additionally, supply chain spillover effects are asymmetric, with only “bad news” layoff announcements causing significant value implications for suppliers, but not “good news” announcements. Supplier firms also reduce their investments in and sales dependence on layoff-announcing customers in subsequent years.
Practical implications
This study shows that layoff decisions, often aimed at improving firms' efficiency and effectiveness, create uncertainty for the suppliers' operation and cause negative value implications on firms' upstream partners. Findings should be useful to corporate decision-makers in making layoff decisions.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the first to address the value implications of corporate layoffs on announcing firms' suppliers. It provides a more comprehensive picture of the economy-wide impact of achieving efficiency through employee layoffs.
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Miao Yu, Jun Gong and Jiafu TANG
The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for the optimal design of queueing systems of call centers with delay information. The main decisions in the design of such…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for the optimal design of queueing systems of call centers with delay information. The main decisions in the design of such systems are the number of servers, the appropriate control to announce delay anticipated.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper models a multi-server queueing system as an M/M/S+M queue with customer reactions. Based on customer psychology in waiting experiences, a number of different service-level definitions are structured and the explicit computation of their performance measures is performed. This paper characterizes the level of satisfaction with delay information to modulate customer reactions. Optimality is defined as the number of agents that maximize revenues net of staffing costs.
Findings
Numerical studies show that the solutions to optimal design of staffing levels and delay information exhibit interesting differences, especially U-shaped curve for optimal staffing level. Experiments show how call center managers can determine economically optimal anticipated delay and number of servers so that they could control the trade-off between revenue loss and customer satisfaction.
Originality/value
Many results that pertain to announcing delay information, customer reactions, and links to satisfaction with delay information have not been established in previous studies, however, this paper analytically characterizes these performance measures for staffing call centers.
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