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This research paper aims to contribute to the literature on emotions in the service experience. The extant literature has extensively discussed how the service experience can drive singular emotions. However, the investigation of the combined effects of mixed emotions – that is, emotions of antagonistic valence (positive and negative) – remains scarce. To fill this gap, this research focuses on the combined effects of the negative emotion of guilt and the positive emotion of pride, two affective reactions that can be felt during a service experience but that differ from each other in terms of valence. Specifically, this research examines how consumers who simultaneously feel these two emotions cope with them and more precisely if they engage in a positive reappraisal of their own behavior during the service experience or if they rather prefer adopting the avoidance strategy of mental disengagement. Finally, this research paper examines how these coping strategies to the mixed emotions of pride and guilt affect satisfaction with the service.

A series of hypotheses relating guilt, pride and the coping strategies of mental disengagement and positive reappraisal, as well as their effect on satisfaction toward the service, are testes using two scenario-based experiments.

The findings show that the effects of guilt on the coping strategies of mental disengagement and positive reappraisal are moderated by pride. Importantly, the results show that these two interacting effects are distinct. Precisely, while pride moderates the effect of guilt on mental disengagement such that a negative effect of guilt is observed mainly among people who feel strong guilt feelings, the moderating effect of pride in the guilt-positive reappraisal relationship is positive and mainly among those who feel low guilt feelings. Further, mental disengagement mediates the effects of guilt on satisfaction and differently according to the level of pride.

This research makes a contribution through the investigation of mixed emotions. This approach appears of value because services can drive different emotions simultaneously, and in a context where most extant research focuses on singular emotions.

This study examines the differential influence of religiosity, materialism and guilt on consumer ethical judgment. It further investigates how the influence may differ across two religiosity dimensions (intrinsic and extrinsic) and two types of unethical behaviour (active and passive).

A quasi-experimental approach assigned Pakistani university students randomly to two groups. One group (n=144) answered a survey regarding an active unethical behaviour (changing price tag), while the other (n=123) answered a similar survey but regarding a passive unethical behaviour (given and pocketing surplus change). This paper used projective technique to help reduce respondents' sensitiveness to the two scenarios. The data was methodologically analysed and fitted using structural equation modelling.

Religiosity does not influence ethical judgment directly, but is mediated by guilt. As expected, materialism negatively determines ethical judgment, and the influence is stronger with active than with passive unethical behaviour. Materialism influences ethical judgment more (less) than guilt does when unethical behaviour is active (passive). Religiosity stems more from intrinsic than extrinsic dimension regardless of the unethical-behaviour type.

Overall, this study highlights that the effects of religiosity on consumer ethics is not straightforward in that the relationship cannot be fully understood without accounting for the role of guilt and materialism, as well as the types of religiosity and ethical behaviour. Significant academic and managerial implications are presented.

This is an initial study on consumer ethics to consider the differential influence of religiosity, materialism and guilt across different religiosity dimensions and unethical behaviour. The context of a Muslim market is also under-researched compared to Western markets.

This study aims to examine the effect of knowledge hiding (KH) on organizational citizenship behavior toward individuals (OCBI) through the mediation of self-conscious emotions (SCE), namely, shame and guilt. This paper further considers the supervisor’s Islamic work ethics (IWE) as a conditional variable.

In this quantity-based research, this paper collected data from 473 employees working in various service and manufacturing organizations through Google form at two-lags.

The study applied structural equation modeling and identified that employees experience SCE due to KH. More specifically, rationalized hiding was found to have a negative effect, whereas playing dumb and evasive hiding was found to have a positive effect on shame and guilt. The results also revealed SCE (shame and guilt) as mediators between KH and OCBI. Further, the supervisor’s IWE was found to be a conditional variable to strengthen the association between KH and SCE.

The study collected data from a single source. However, the issue of common method variance was tackled through time-lags.

The study suggests that supervisors must communicate with employees about the negative outcomes of KH. They must create such an environment that discourages the engagement of employees in KH and encourages the employees to engage themselves in helping behaviors to maintain a productive and creative work environment.

This study adds to the limited literature on the emotional consequences of KH from knowledge hiders’ perspective and unfolds the behavior-emotion-behavior sequence through the emotional pathway. More specifically, this study examined the negative emotional effect of hiding the knowledge that leads to compensatory strategy (organizational citizenship behavior) through SCE (shame and guilt). Finally, zooming into SCE, this study elucidates the supervisor’s IWE as a conditional variable.

In response to scholarly calls, the study aims to extend and magnify the existing understanding by unravelling the differential impact of anticipated emotions on green practice adoption intention through a proposed model by integrating anticipated pride and guilt in the same continuum along with values (altruistic, biospheric and egoistic) on an employee's attitude.

A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data randomly from 307 employees and middle-level executives of three subsidiaries of CIL through the simple random sampling (SRS) technique. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

Results demonstrate that anticipated guilt influences individual cognitions and future ecological decision-making through improved attitude and higher concern for the environment while pride influences only through improved attitude. Other than biospheric and altruistic values, anticipated guilt is a direct and important antecedent of concern. Altruistic values are more influential predictors of environmental intentions in comparison to biospheric values. At the same time, environmental concern is more robust in predicting eco-intentions than attitude.

It makes notable difference from other studies by not only exploring the validity of the relationship between values on attitude and environmental concern but has also considered anticipated emotions of pride and guilt together alongside values on the same continuum as an antecedent of environmental attitude and concern towards employees’ green behavioural intention at the workplace. The findings are believed to provide a common consensus on differential effects of different states of emotions on environmental concern and attitude.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how a consumer’s intention to purchase a premium or luxury product influences the anticipated regret and guilt.

A 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design (label: premium versus luxury × prior event: success versus failure × product type: hedonic versus utilitarian) on guilt and regret was implemented.

Following a successful event, the anticipated regret and guilt are lower for a hedonic product compared to a primarily utilitarian one. The effect was valid when the consumers were looking to buy both luxury and premium. In a situation following a failure, the anticipated levels of regret and guilt were lower for a product that was primarily utilitarian in nature; however, this effect only appeared when the participants were looking to buy both luxury and not premium.

People may feel more licensed to indulge in a hedonic premium or luxury product after a success and more licensed to indulge in a utilitarian luxury product after a failure.

The results can be used to understand how to optimize a marketing message of indulgence whether or not one deserves it.

The study provides novel insight into how anticipated guilt and regret may be evoked by the goal of buying a premium versus luxury product in combination with the product type and a consumer’s experience of a prior event.

For as long as luxury has existed, it has been criticized, by philosophers and moralists, who condemn self-indulgence, hedonism and vanity. Yet these concerns have not prevented the remarkable expansion of the luxury sector, evidence that most buyers revel in unashamed luxury. Modern economists point out the link between the development of the luxury market and the growth of social inequality. This study aims to assess how much guilt consumers feel during luxury purchases and identify its levers.

Based on 3,162 real luxury buyers from 6 countries, both Asian and western, emerging and mature luxury markets, a partial least squares-structural equation models (PLS-SEM) analysis assesses the level of guilt experienced during luxury purchases and identifies which drivers most impact guilt.

This study assesses the presence of a little guilt among a significant portion of luxury buyers across countries. Two countries present extreme scores: the USA (55.6%) and Japan (32%). Overall, the main driver of guilt is that luxury makes economic inequality highly visible; interestingly the pursuit of hedonism reduces the feelings of guilt.

These findings have notable implications for luxury companies as the long-term success of this sector would be questionable if it attracts social criticism and induces distressing feelings among clients.

Luxury brands need to implement guilt reducing communication strategies.

The luxury sector as a whole should redefine its purpose and mission.

This level of guilt experienced during purchases rarely has been investigated in prior luxury research. Yet luxury addresses larger targets, from the happy few to the happy many. Thanks to PLS-SEM modelization, the same hierarchy of guilt driving factors is revealed across countries.

Research on the service recovery paradox (SRP) effect has indicated that after recovery from failures in customer service, customers will commonly rate their satisfaction higher than prior to the service failure. However, thus far there has been little research on the cause of this phenomenon. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of “guilt” emotions in the context of consumer service.

Three experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. Data were collected from 532 undergraduate, graduate students and the general people.

The results of the experiments demonstrate that if customers are compensated for service failures by receiving better than anticipated service, they will commonly experience feelings of “guilt.” In an attempt to alleviate this guilt, customers will project their feelings in evaluating a company, and will rate their customer satisfaction more highly. In doing so, the customer feels relief in reciprocating the kindness of the firm; in this way, the firm wins over the customer’s heart.

This is one of the first studies to discuss the effect of guilt in the SRP effect. This research shows that relying on the emotion of “guilt” for receiving exceptional service helps companies to overcome service failures and successfully rebuild their relationships with customers.

Consumer purchase decisions can be influenced by many emotions, including guilt. Guilt which enters into the consumer purchase decision is identified as “consumer guilt” and may provide opportunities for marketers to influence the consumer decision process. A negative emotion which results from a consumer decision that violates one′s values or norms, explores the consumer guilt construct in a series of focus groups. The groups were composed of subjects representing various age, religious affiliation, occupation, and income groups. Four types of consumer guilt were identified: financial; health; moral; and financial responsibility. Consumer guilt is further classified in terms of anticipatory and reactive states, occurring in both decisions to purchase as well as not to purchase, and as it relates to focus on oneself or others.

Extant research has shown the prevalence of social networking site (SNS) addiction and provided evidence for its negative consequences. Given such consequences, it is conceivable that some users decide to discontinue their SNS use in response to SNS addiction. This paper examines key mechanisms that translate SNS addiction into discontinuance decisions.

A theoretical model is proposed based on the cognitive-affective model of behavior. It is empirically tested with data from 499 SNS users.

Results show that cognitive dissonance (as primary cognitive response) and guilt (as primary affective response) mediate the relation between SNS addiction and decision to discontinue SNS use, whereas self-accountability and perceived self-efficacy play positive and negative moderating roles. Additional analysis reveals that the effect of guilt on decision to discontinue SNS use follows a nonlinear pattern.

Additional cognitive and affective responses, beyond cognitive dissonance and guilt, as well as additional contextual factors may influence the relation between SNS addiction and decision to discontinue SNS use. In addition, the relation between decisions and actual discontinuance should be examined by future research.

This study highlights important key antecedents of the decision to discontinue SNS use, namely cognitive dissonance, guilt, self-accountability, and perceived self-efficacy, and the mechanisms underlying their influence. It also explains the nonlinear effect of guilt on the decision to discontinue SNS use.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical conceptualisation of guilt and the depoliticization of downsizing practices. The authors begin with a critical review of the relevant management literature aiming to establish the discursive normalization and individualization of (un)employment. The authors then use secondary sources to reflect on the downsizing process. A process that, as the authors argue, is distinguished into three separate but interconnected phases: corporate memos (phase 1), termination scripts (phase 2) and the role of outplacement services (phase 3). By examining this process, the aim is to point to the mechanisms through which downsizing practices are neutralized and depoliticized.

This is a conceptual work that provides a systematic overview of the existing management literature on downsizing and guilt. Use of other secondary sources (corporate memos and termination scripts) is also employed to draw links between the discursive normalization of downsizing as identified in the relevant literature and the specific organizational processes and practices implemented by corporations during downsizing. The authors identify common ideas and themes that cut across the relevant literature and the secondary sources and aim to offer a theoretical conceptualisation of guilt and the depoliticization of downsizing practices.

This paper argues that downsizing discourses and practices contribute to the feelings of personal responsibility and self-blame, reinforcing an individualistic understanding of work and unemployment that excludes more structural ones, and that it helps in reproducing the existing structures of power.

The study recognizes that employees’ reactions are not only unpredictable but also constantly evolving, depending on personal and social circumstances. The authors also recognize that the work is based on secondary sources much of which talk about practices in US companies, and thus the authors are and should be cautious of generalizations. The authors hope, however, that the authors will encourage further empirical research, particularly among organization studies and critical management scholars, on downsizing practices and guilt. For the authors’ part, the authors have tried to offer a critical reflection on how guilt is produced through corporate discourses and practices, and the authors believe that further empirical investigation on the three phases of the downsizing process (as identified in our work) and the lived experience of (un)employment is needed. As corporate downsizing discourses and practices frame (un)employment in strictly individualist and behavioral terms, the authors wish to emphasize the need for further theoretical investigation and political contestation. The authors, therefore, hope that the work will contribute to the relevant literature on downsizing practices and open up the discussions around layoff policies and the structural conditions of (un)employment.

The paper shows that downsizing practices and feelings of guilt are strongly linked to and exemplify the “individualization” of social and political issues such as work and unemployment. The authors suggest that individualization signifies, in some sense, a retreat from organized collective resistance and mobilization based upon class and that the prevalence of the ideology of individualism (and its correlative, meritocracy), over alternative explanations and solutions to such public issues, helps in reproducing existing structures of power and inequity.