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All hypothesized relationships were significant. Specifically, H1 was supported as disconfirmation and surprising consumption were significantly correlated. Moreover, arousal (H2) and outrage (H4a) were functions of surprising consumption and negative affect (H3) and outrage (H4b) were functions of arousal. H4c was also supported as negative affect had a significant direct effect on consumer outrage. In addition, disconfirmation had negative direct effects on both negative affect (H5) and dissatisfaction (H6a) and dissatisfaction was a function of negative affect. Finally, both outrage (H7a) and dissatisfaction (H7b) had significant negative effects on behavioral intentions.

Respondents were recruited to participate in the data collection in a “college town” in the Southeastern United States. Respondents were provided a paper and pencil data collection instrument that include complete survey instructions and the balance of the research design. To adequately test all hypotheses, the researchers developed a unique scenario that described an extreme service failure that takes place during a hotel check-in. Each respondent was asked to read the scenario and then reflect upon it as they responded to items that assessed their feelings toward the hotel check-in experience.

The results provide additional evidence in support of the existence of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum, as well as specifically identifying the affective nature of levels of satisfaction that fall surprisingly well-below the zone of tolerance. The authors feel that the present study is a necessary step to provide a more comprehensive view of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum. Likewise, the authors posit initial evidence of the antecedents and consequences of consumer outrage. This research supports the prior assumptions of Westbrook (1987) about the vast detrimental effects of negative affective responses to service or product failures.

Future research needs to discover just how extremely deficient service has to be to elicit outrage. Is outrage a personal phenomenon with every consumer experiencing it to different degrees? As such, is outrage triggered at different points on the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum? The zone of tolerance seems to suggest this, but it would be interesting to discover if at some collective level of dissatisfaction consumers generally begin to show signs of outrage. Likewise, it would be interesting to understand how the level and pattern of outrage results in customers exiting the relationship but also results in loyal customers becoming enemies (e.g. Gregiore et al., 2009; Gregiore and Fisher, 2008).

The motivation for the current study is both pragmatic and theoretical. As alluded to above, it is evident that the level of service customers’ emotional responses to their service experiences are increasing in frequency and intensity. These negative emotions affect the efficacy of service workers and impede the financial performance of service providers. The popular mantra of “anti-woke” consumers, “Go Woke, Go Broke,” is indicative of the importance of negative emotion. Sometimes referred to as “brand activism” (Moorman, 2020; Sarkar and Kotlet, 2019), recent public stances on social and political issues have led to a boycott of Gillette razors, the burning of Nike shoes, and the canceling of Costco Memberships in what has been called “virtue signaling” (Vredenburg et al., 2020). While none of these actions are desirable, the importance of investigating the impact of strong negative emotions (i.e. outrage) is further demonstrated in reports that 65% of consumers expect companies to authentically support such issues (Barton et al., 2018; Edelman, 2018; Larcker and Tayan, 2018; Moorman, 2020).

This study aims to propose a model of publics' ethical activism, testing the role of emotional outrage in an extended framework of the previously established STOPS model. Thus, this study aims to investigate (1) how ethical perception of a social issue affects situational motivation that leads to participation in public activism, and (2) how emotional outrage plays a role in mediating between situational motivation and activism behaviors.

The study aims at investigating the mediating role of emotional outrage between situational motivation and activism behaviors, which have not been investigated thoroughly in public relations research. By conducting a national survey with 386 people (N = 386) living in Australia, the study's suggestive model was tested in the context of two ethical issues (e.g. climate change and anti-racism). This study found that people who perceive an ethical issue are likely to be motivated to participate in activism behaviors. Specifically, three situational perceptions (i.e. problem recognition, constraint recognition and involvement recognition) were found to be significant factors affecting situational motivation (SM) in problem solving. A high level of emotional outrage was found to play a mediating role between SM and consequential ethical activism behaviors. The more people feel outraged about an ethical issue, the more likely they will engage in punitive behavior. This study contributes to the theoretical development of public relations by illuminating how situational perceptions lead to emotional outrage that promotes behavioral intentions in an ethical context. This study also suggests that a practitioner should be sought to manage the levels of perceptual factors when setting up a communication plan in response to an ethical public crisis.

This study found that people who perceive an ethical issue are likely to be motivated to participate in activism behaviors. Specifically, three situational perceptions (i.e. problem recognition, constraint recognition and involvement recognition) were found to be significant factors affecting situational motivation (SM) in problem solving. A high level of emotional outrage was found to play a mediating role between SM and consequential ethical activism behaviors. The more people feel outraged about an ethical issue, the more likely they will engage in punitive behavior.

This study substantiates how three perceptual antecedents may conjointly affect situational motivation. Also, the findings in this study also contribute to theoretical development in predicting ethical activism intentions. Another contribution of this study is to demonstrate the mediating role of emotional outrage between situational motivation and ethical activism. The authors strived to explore individuals' perceptions and its impact on intention to boycott against ethical problematic social issues. It should be considered that this study used a hypothetical and manipulated situation where respondents are exposed to the visual stimuli that focus on the moral problems that those specific issues have raised.

First, as problem recognition plays a prime mover role in the overall problem-solving process in an ethical context, organizations should reduce individual's ethical problem recognition. When setting up a communication plan, an organization should showcase their positive role in addressing the ethical problems (e.g. to show Adani's commitment to indigenous people and efforts to protect the environment). The response strategy should be effective enough to create an “ethical dilemma,” which refers to a situation in which one has a difficult choice to make between two ethical options.

This study contributes to theoretical development of public relations by illuminating how situational perceptions lead to emotional outrage that promotes behavioral intentions in an ethical context. This study also suggests that a practitioner should be sought to manage the levels of perceptual factors when setting up a communication plan in response to an ethical public crisis.

Despite multiple studies of customer delight in various service industries, limited research exists in the hedonically driven theme park context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the key drivers of customer delight and outrage in theme parks by analyzing TripAdvisor’s comments from visitors to the top 20 North American theme parks.

Following the analysis of thousands of extremely positive and negative comments using MAXQDA qualitative software, keywords drivers of delight and outrage were identified. The researchers applied both thematic and root cause in order to ascertain the sources leading to both positive and negative consumer feedback.

Delighted guests relayed various aspects of their experience including positive affect experience, positive value perceptions, and limited wait times. Root causes that influenced customer delight included: excellent core product, quality food and beverage, servicescape, pricing decisions, and low visitor demand or sensible admissions policies. Outraged guests described various aspects of their experiences such as negative perceptions of value, long waits, poor customer service, and negative emotions. Root causes for customer outrage included low quality or deficient core products, poor quality of food and beverage, poor facility maintenance, aggressive pricing decisions, poor staff selection, training, and working conditions, and high customer demand on any given date or aggressive admissions policies.

The present research is unique in that it exposes the key themes of customer delight and outrage in the theme park setting, presents a conceptual model, and analyzes its root causes.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate measurement scales for consumer delight and outrage.

The paper used both qualitative, survey, and experiment methodology.

First, develop and validate the scale of customer delight, second, conceptualize the construct of customer outrage, as well as develop and validate its scale; third, explore the differential behavioral results of delight vs satisfaction, and outrage vs dissatisfaction; and fourth, further our understanding of the satisfaction-dissatisfaction continuum.

While researchers increasingly recognize that delight and outrage are distinct from satisfaction and dissatisfaction, it is important to have scales that differentiate between these constructs. To this end, this paper develops and validates scales to measure consumer delight and outrage, respectively. These scales will be useful to other researchers interested in measuring consumer delight and outrage in various research contexts.

Drawing on expectancy violation theory, this study aims to assess the impact of corporate environmental irresponsibility (CEI) on workplace deviant behaviors (WDB) of Generation Z and Millennials through the mediation of moral outrage.

The data were collected from 328 nonmanagerial employees working in the refinery, petroleum and power distribution companies who have been convicted for committing environmental irresponsibility by a court of law. Multigroup analysis (MGA) was used to estimate the hypothesized relationships.

Results revealed that CEI affects WDBs positively. Moreover, the MGA results demonstrated that the deviant behavior of Generation Z in response to environmental irresponsibility is higher than of the Millennials.

Theoretically, the findings implicate that harming the environment will cost organizational performance through deviant behaviors.

This study provides a new lens for the executive management that eliminating social irresponsibility is more important than incurring sustainability initiatives, especially from the new generation’s perspective.

The originality of this study is that it confirmed the impact of CEI on employees’ deviant behaviors; and extended the scope of expectancy violation theory to the field of human resources.

The purpose of this paper, a set of two studies, is to elaborate on the concept of scansis and its effects upon crisis communication theory and practice. A scansis represents the intersection of a scandal and crisis, essentially when a crisis becomes a scandal. A new term was created due to the varied ways in which the term scandal is used and misused. The effects of scansis on crisis communication are examined through two studies. A scansis is unique because it creates moral outrage and is a function of a perception of injustice coupled with greed.

Experimental design is used in both studies to test for the effects of specific crisis response strategies used during a scansis. The crisis response strategies were manipulated to determine whether or not corrective action with moral recognition is more effective at helping organizations during a crisis than those crisis response strategies that do not contain a moral component.

The two studies found no short-term effect for crisis responses during scansis. This included no difference between corrective action with moral recognition and the other three response conditions for the short-term factors of organizational reputation, negative word-of-mouth intentions, purchase intentions and anger. However, Study 2 found that corrective action with moral recognition was perceived as the most empathetic response and created the lowest levels of moral outrage. The authors postulate that corrective action with moral recognition has a long-term effect after a scansis by creating a positive response that moves organizations away from being stigmatized.

The results raise questions about the current configuration of the intentional crisis cluster articulated in situational crisis communication theory (SCCT). When just consider assessments crisis responsibility, a scansis would be part of the preventable crisis cluster. However, the evaluation of justice and greed suggest a scansis may be a unique crisis type that does not fit within the intentional crisis cluster and the prescribed short-term effects of crisis response strategies recommend by SCCT. The scansis establishes a boundary condition for the limits of crisis response strategies on short-term effects such as reputation and purchase intention. These findings require us to rethink elements of current crisis communication theory.

The lack of short-term benefits should not be an argument for abandoning accommodative crisis response strategies. Practitioners need to realize the limits of crisis response strategies for creating short-term benefits and think about the potential long-term benefits offered by crisis response strategies.

Scansis is a new concept for crisis communication and provides a link between the crisis communication and organizational stigma literatures. The two studies are the first attempts to empirically examine scansis and opens new avenues of thinking and research for crisis communication and organizational stigma researchers.

In addition to serving a hegemonic function, system-justifying ideologies serve the palliative function of enabling people to feel better about inequality. We summarize three studies supporting this proposition. In the first study, an arbitrary hierarchy was created using the “Star Power” simulation. Results reveal that system justification is associated with increased positive affect, satisfaction, and decreased negative affect, guilt, and frustration. Two additional studies demonstrate that the dampening effect of system justification on support for the redistribution of resources is mediated by reduced moral outrage but not guilt or negative affect. Implications for social change and social justice are discussed.

Understanding negative customer engagement is important as it is argued that negative information has a stronger impact on a customer’s brand perception and purchase decision than that of positive information. Hence, this paper aims to propose new determinants of negatively valenced customer engagement, including disengaged and negatively engaged behaviours in a service consumption context and explore under what conditions customers display disengaged or negatively engaged behaviours.

This study incorporates justice theory, expectancy disconfirmation theory and psychology literature to propose determinants of negative customer engagement behaviours.

A conceptual framework is developed that proposes customer perceived justice and negative disconfirmation as determinants of negative customer engagement via the mediator of customer outrage. Moderating variables, include self-esteem, self-efficacy, altruism and vengeance; are also proposed to affect disengaged/negatively engaged behaviours.

This study is the first to specify the underlying reasons of negative customer engagement by establishing the conceptual linkages between negative disconfirmation, justice and negative customer engagement via the mediating role of customer outrage. Further, customer resources are used to understand disengaged/negatively engaged behaviours. In doing so, this study views negative customer engagement from the perspective of a customer’s internal response to the trigger experience, rather than the experience itself. Thus, this study contributes to literature on customer engagement by developing a conceptual framework that illustrates the underlying cognitive and affective responses that drive negative customer engagement behaviours.

Facebook continues to play an increasingly necessary role in the corporate portfolio of stakeholder relations. Unlike traditional channels of corporate communication, Facebook allows for uncensored, unpredictable, two‐way conversations. This paper aims to engage thought and enact immediate action in the prevention and rehabilitation of a company's online reputation in the event of a Facebook wall attack.

By conducting online research for an online subject and studying the historical perspectives of public outrage and a “fan's” dissatisfaction, the authors examine different approaches to corporate attacks. The case study of Nestlé's improper handling of a crisis on Facebook contrasted with examples of properly handled responses serve as guidelines that any company can utilize. The authors have provided seven steps that any business can incorporate into its crisis prevention plan.

Harm, fear of harm and threatened values are the three basic sources of public outrage. The popularity of social media, particularly Facebook, provides a new venue for unhappy customers to publicly communicate their disdain. By relating to customers on a personal level and planning in advance, companies can recover from Facebook attacks quickly and with minimal damage.

The psychological underpinnings and science of outrage can be applied to the human behavior of social networking. Understanding why people complain and forecasting the inevitable outbreak of negativity provides valuable insight into avoiding potentially detrimental social media attacks. Real world examples shed insight into the proper handling of future situations. The seven steps for success provide a must‐have guide for any company competing in the digital realm.

A recent body of research in crisis communications suggests that risk awareness and negative affect concerning a risk may be separate psychological constructs. These constructs may have independent and combined implications for crisis communication practitioners, in terms of message placement and audience responses. Making affected audiences aware of the nature of a risk, and coupling this awareness with an appropriate degree of negative affect, may be critical in motivating individuals to take action to protect themselves. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the above issues.

In order to explore the best outlets for inducing risk awareness and appropriate levels of negative affect, an experimental study explored the influence of print, video, and combined messages on these factors. The experiment also examined whether or not order of presentation of print and video messages would be relevant.

The findings indicate that the use of organization-produced messages placed in print media may reduce negative affect, while the order of presentation in multimedia approaches may have little effect on either construct. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for those crafting public messages concerning developing crises, while suggesting that organizations must consider the highly arousing nature of televised risk messages when informing and persuading the public.

This study moves the literature a step forward by offering an empirical assessment of the value of an organizational message in reducing negative affect. It moves beyond past studies exploring the combined impact of risk awareness and affect by examining their relationship with placement strategy, and does so by measuring actual audience reactions.