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1 – 10 of 168Yu-Shan (Sandy) Huang and Ruping Liu
Dysfunctional customer behavior (DCB) is costly and problematic for organizations. This research seeks to understand how DCB spreads and how businesses can effectively deal with…
Abstract
Purpose
Dysfunctional customer behavior (DCB) is costly and problematic for organizations. This research seeks to understand how DCB spreads and how businesses can effectively deal with it through employee intervention.
Design/methodology/approach
This research conducted a survey study and an experimental study to examine the proposed model.
Findings
Through two studies, we discovered that when an employee intervenes to stop DCB and is perceived as having high coping ability, observing customers learn from the employee’s action, resulting in reduced empathy toward the dysfunctional customer and diminished intentions to engage in DCB. Conversely, if they perceive the employee as having low coping ability, the intervention backfires, enhancing the observers’ empathy toward the dysfunctional customer and consequently leading them to engage in more DCB.
Originality/value
This research unveils an additional mechanism that explains the spread of DCB. It also contributes to the employee intervention literature by shedding light on when employee intervention can backfire. Further, our application of social learning theory along with the person-situation interaction literature offers a fresh perspective in explaining service exchanges.
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Xinyuan (Roy) Zhao, Fujin Wang, Anna S. Mattila, Aliana Man Wai Leong, Zhenzhen Cui and Huan Yang
Customer misbehavior has a negative impact on frontline employees. However, the underlying mechanisms from customer misbehavior to employees’ negative outcomes need to be further…
Abstract
Purpose
Customer misbehavior has a negative impact on frontline employees. However, the underlying mechanisms from customer misbehavior to employees’ negative outcomes need to be further unfolded and examined. This study aims to propose that employees’ affective rumination and problem-solving pondering could be the explanatory processes of customer misbehavior influencing employee attitudes in which coworker support could be a moderator.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-method approach was designed to test this study’s predictions. Study 1 conducted a scenario-based experiment among 215 full-time hospitality employees, and Study 2 used a two-wave, longitudinal survey of 305 participants.
Findings
The results demonstrate the impact of customer misbehavior on work–family conflict and withdrawal behaviors. The mediating role of affective rumination is supported and coworker support moderates the processes.
Practical implications
Customer misbehavior leads to negative outcomes among frontline employees both at work and family domains. Hotel managers should help frontline employees to cope with customer misbehavior by avoiding negative affective spillover and providing support properly.
Originality/value
The studies have unfolded the processes of affective rumination and problem-solving pondering through which customer misbehavior influences work–family conflict and withdrawal behaviors among frontline employees. The surprising findings that coworker support magnified the negative effects have also been discussed.
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Shahrbanoo Yadollahi, Ali Kazemi and Bahram Ranjbarian
Customer-to-customer (C2C) interactions substantially affect the overall service experience. This study attempts to provide a better and deeper understanding of C2C interactions…
Abstract
Purpose
Customer-to-customer (C2C) interactions substantially affect the overall service experience. This study attempts to provide a better and deeper understanding of C2C interactions during the customer journey in the banking industry. The study aims to investigate the complexities of these interactions and to detect their outcomes and further implications in banking services.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a sequential mixed-method approach. Firstly, semi-structured interviews were conducted to identify the components of C2C interactions during the customer journey. Subsequently, thematic analysis was performed to categorize the data and extract relevant components. Secondly, structural equation modeling was used to investigate the role of C2C interactions in behavioral outcomes.
Findings
The findings reveal that during the customer journey, C2C interactions plays a key role by providing information, managing queuing behavior, providing resources, and addressing issues related to other customers’ misbehavior. Additionally, C2C interactions have a positive direct effect on the customer experience, satisfaction, and loyalty. Customer experience, in turn, affects customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Originality/value
This study highlights the need for academic scholars to prioritize customers’ interaction during the customer journey in financial services, addressing a gap between industry directions and academic research in customer experience. Also, the findings help service providers develop effective strategies to enhance the customer experience by focusing on C2C interactions during the customer journey.
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Kathrin Mayr and Christoph Teller
Unacceptable behaviour in retailing – negative customer deviance (NCD) is rising, damaging retailers financially. Current research investigates forms of NCD by addressing its…
Abstract
Purpose
Unacceptable behaviour in retailing – negative customer deviance (NCD) is rising, damaging retailers financially. Current research investigates forms of NCD by addressing its impact on employees but overlooks its effects on bystander-customers and their retail channel preferences. As channel switching within retailing is increasing unprecedentedly, this research investigates its correspondence with NCD encounters.
Design/methodology/approach
This research uses structural equation modelling, based on data collection administered through a web-based survey of 1,008 customers of at least 16 years of age, to analyse the research model.
Findings
The findings reveal unexplored forms of NCD perceived by bystander-customers in retailing and their consequences, linking it to bystander-customers' ill-being, dissatisfaction with the shopping experience, a decrease in store commitment and an increase in their retail channel-switching intentions. Additionally, the research uncovers moderating variables.
Practical implications
This research tests NCD dimensions and effects on bystander-customers, which indicate the need for retailers to address shopping values, attitudes and commitment through corrective, proactive and long-term strategic actions.
Originality/value
As one of the first studies to investigate the impact of NCD on bystander-customers' intentions to switch from store-based to online shopping, strategies for retailers are developed to help diminish and control NCD-induced threats to bystander-customers.
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This research addressed online customer-to-customer (C2C) incivility during digital service recovery.
Abstract
Purpose
This research addressed online customer-to-customer (C2C) incivility during digital service recovery.
Design/methodology/approach
To examine the effectiveness of managerial responses to online C2C incivility post a restaurant service failure, a 2 (Managerial response: general vs specific) x 2 (Failure severity: high vs low) quasi-experimental design was employed. A pretest was conducted with 123 restaurant consumers via Amazon Mechanical Turk, followed by a main study with 174 restaurant consumers. Taking a mixed-method approach, this research first asked open-ended questions to explore how participants perceived the restaurant’s motivation for providing a generic versus a specific response. Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS procedure was then performed for hypotheses testing.
Findings
The results revealed significant interaction effects of managerial responses and failure severity on perceived online service climate and revisit intention, mediated by trust with managerial responses.
Originality/value
This research yielded unique insight into C2C incivility management literature and industry practices in the context of digital customer service recovery.
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Yilmaz Akgunduz, Mehmet Alper Nisari and Serpil Sungur
This study proposes a model that influences customer citizenship behavior during COVID-19, and empirically tests the effects of fast-food restaurant customers' perceptions of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study proposes a model that influences customer citizenship behavior during COVID-19, and empirically tests the effects of fast-food restaurant customers' perceptions of justice (price and procedural justice) on trust; trust on satisfaction and loyalty; and trust, satisfaction and loyalty on customer citizenship behavior. Furthermore, it was questioned whether there was a disparity between customer expectations based on the restaurant's image and consumption experience.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were gathered from customers of fast-food restaurants in the shopping centers in Turkey. The data set, which included 437 valid questionnaires, was subjected to CFA for validity and reliability, SEM analysis for hypothesis and paired sample t-Tests for the research questions.
Findings
The findings of the study indicate that perceived justice affects customer trust, which, consequently, affects customer loyalty and satisfaction during the COVID-19 period. Findings also demonstrate that, while customer loyalty and trust increase customer citizenship behavior, customer satisfaction alone is insufficient to increase customer citizenship behavior. The study also shows that during the COVID-19 period, fast-food restaurants should have raised awareness of employees’ fair behaviors toward the customers and provided additional services to differentiate themselves in the market. Also, it indicates that customer expectations related to price, cleanliness and professional appearance of staff are not met after taking service.
Originality/value
No research has been found in the literature focusing on the expectations, justice, trust, satisfaction, loyalty and citizenship behaviors of fast-food restaurant customers in the COVID-19 pandemic process. Therefore, the results can fill the gap in relevant literature by testing the relationships between justice, trust, satisfaction, loyalty and citizenship during the pandemic and provide inferences for fast-food business owners.
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Naveed Ahmad, Heesup Han and Minseo Kim
The competitive nature of the hospitality industry necessitates continual adaptation and innovation. While standardization can stifle creativity, CSR has the potential to enhance…
Abstract
Purpose
The competitive nature of the hospitality industry necessitates continual adaptation and innovation. While standardization can stifle creativity, CSR has the potential to enhance employee extra-role behaviors, including creativity. The existing literature on the relationship between CSR and employee creativity is sparse, especially in developing countries, and tends to overlook the importance of emotions. This research was designed to investigate the relationship between CSR and employee creativity in the hospitality sector of an emerging economy, with a focus on the mediating effects of emotions like employee admiration and happiness and the moderating role of employees' altruistic values.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 428 hospitality employees using questionnaires. Analysis was conducted using the SMART-PLS software.
Findings
CSR has a notable influence on creativity. Emotions, specifically employee admiration and happiness, along with personal values, were found to play significant mediating and moderating roles in the CSR-employee creativity relationship.
Practical implications
The findings provide valuable insights for hospitality managers, suggesting that CSR initiatives can be leveraged to enhance competitive advantages by promoting employee creativity. The study underscores the importance of understanding the emotional and value-based dimensions of employees about CSR initiatives.
Originality/value
This research fills a critical gap in the literature, particularly in the context of emerging economies, by examining the emotional facets of the CSR-employee creativity relationship. The study’s emphasis on emotional mediators and altruistic values as moderators in the said relationship adds a unique dimension to the discourse, enriching the understanding of how CSR can influence hospitality employees' creative outcomes.
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Xiaoyu Wan and Haodi Chen
Explore how the degree of humanization affects user misconduct, and provide effective misconduct prevention measures for the wide application of artificial intelligence in the…
Abstract
Purpose
Explore how the degree of humanization affects user misconduct, and provide effective misconduct prevention measures for the wide application of artificial intelligence in the future.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the “Uncanny Valley theory”, three experiments were conducted to explore the relationship between the degree of humanization of service machines and user misbehavior, and to analyze the mediating role of cognitive resistance and the moderating role of social class.
Findings
There is a U-shaped relationship between the degree of humanization of service machines and user misbehavior; Social class not only regulates the main effect of anthropomorphism on misbehavior, but also regulates the intermediary effect of anthropomorphism on cognitive resistance, thus affecting misbehavior.
Research limitations/implications
The design of the service robot can be from the user’s point of view, combined with the user’s social class, match different user types, and provide the same preferences as the user’s humanoid service robot.
Practical implications
This study is an important reference value for enterprises and governments to provide intelligent services in public places. It can prevent the robot from being vandalized and also provide users with a comfortable human-computer interaction experience, expanding the positive effects of providing smart services by government and enterprises.
Social implications
This study avoids and reduces users' misbehavior towards intelligent service robots, improves users' satisfaction in using service robots, and avoids service robots being damaged, resulting in waste of government, enterprise and social resources.
Originality/value
From the perspective of product factors to identify the inducing factors of improper behavior, from the perspective of social class of users to analyze the moderating effect of humanization degree and user improper behavior.
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Jung-Chieh Lee and Liang nan Xiong
Compared to traditional (domestic) e-commerce consumers, cross-border electronic commerce (CBEC) consumers may face greater information asymmetry in the CBEC purchase process…
Abstract
Purpose
Compared to traditional (domestic) e-commerce consumers, cross-border electronic commerce (CBEC) consumers may face greater information asymmetry in the CBEC purchase process. Given this background, however, the literature has paid limited attention to the informational antecedents that influence consumers' perceptions of transaction costs and their CBEC purchase intentions. To fill this gap, this study integrates the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and transaction cost theory (TCT) to develop a model for exploring how product (website informativeness, product diagnosticity and website interactivity as the central route) and external (country brand, website policy and vendor reputation as the peripheral route) informational antecedents affect consumers’ evaluations of transaction costs in terms of uncertainty and asset specificity and their CBEC purchase intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a survey approach to validate the model with 766 Generation Z CBEC consumers based on judgment sampling. The partial least squares (PLS) technique is adopted for data analysis.
Findings
The results show that all the proposed central and peripheral informational antecedents reduce consumers’ perceptions of uncertainty and asset specificity, which in turn negatively influences their CBEC purchase intentions.
Originality/value
Through this investigation, this study increases our understanding of how product and external informational antecedents affect consumers’ evaluations of transaction costs, which subsequently determine their CBEC purchase decisions. This study offers theoretical contributions to existing CBEC research and has practical implications for CBEC organizations and managers.
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Mornay Roberts-Lombard and Daniël Johannes Petzer
The purpose of this study is to investigate possible drivers of loyalty amongst Islamic banking customers in Gauteng, South Africa. We ponder the relationships of service fairness…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate possible drivers of loyalty amongst Islamic banking customers in Gauteng, South Africa. We ponder the relationships of service fairness (a secondorder reflective construct) with perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were obtained from Islamic banking customers in South Africa using interview-administered questionnaires. A total of 350 responses were perceived as being suitable for data analysis. The measurement and structural models were measured through structural equation modelling.
Findings
Service fairness and perceived value were found to be important drivers of loyalty within this context.
Research limitations/implications
This study demonstrates that service fairness and perceived value are precursors to the future loyalty intentions of Islamic banking customers. As such, they should be nurtured as key elements of the relationship building process.
Practical implications
The study guides South African Islamic banks and South African banks with Islamic windows to better understand how service fairness (interactional, procedural and distributive) fosters satisfaction, perceived value and loyalty (attitudinal and behavioural).
Originality/value
Enhancing comprehension of the relationship between service fairness and customer loyalty, with satisfaction and perceived value playing intermediary roles, represents an unexplored avenue in academic research within the context of Islamic banking in an emerging African market.
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