IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v168y2023ics0148296323005829.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is strong more vulnerable? An empirical investigation of psychological contract formation, violation, and customer reactions

Author

Listed:
  • Su, Lishan
  • Laczniak, Russell N.
  • Walker, Doug
  • Raju, Sekar

Abstract

The authors combine the psychological contract theory with the cognitive appraisal theory of emotions to systematically examine how psychological contract breach affects customer reactions to service failures. In service encounters, customers may perceive a discrepancy between what the brand has promised and what they have received, leading to breach that could potentially evoke feelings of violation and result in retaliatory behaviors. Two online scenario-based experiments reveal that 1) breach and subsequent feelings of betrayal mediate the impact of the strength of psychological contracts on anger in response to service failures, and that 2) breach, betrayal, and anger mediate the impacts of the strength of psychological contracts on partner quality inferences and negative word-of-mouth communication intentions, with the effects being moderated by the reason for the failure (customer fault versus brand fault). These results indicate that managing psychological contracts can help mitigate negative reactions to service failures.

Suggested Citation

  • Su, Lishan & Laczniak, Russell N. & Walker, Doug & Raju, Sekar, 2023. "Is strong more vulnerable? An empirical investigation of psychological contract formation, violation, and customer reactions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:168:y:2023:i:c:s0148296323005829
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114223
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296323005829
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114223?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carolyn Bonifield & Catherine Cole, 2007. "Affective responses to service failure: Anger, regret, and retaliatory versus conciliatory responses," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 85-99, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tan, Teck Ming & Salo, Jari & Aspara, Jaakko, 2024. "You fooled me, so I’ll tell you about myself! personnel-related brand betrayal experiences and disclosure of personal information," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    2. Wang, Jinchao & Luo, Changfu & Dong, Yanfang & Guo, Chu-yu, 2024. "Does intergenerational mobility affect corporate innovation? Evidence from Chinese manufacturing enterprises," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 526-538.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhou, Yuanyuan & Tsang, Alex S.L. & Huang, Minxue & Zhou, Nan, 2014. "Does delaying service-failure resolution ever make sense?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 159-166.
    2. Mark Groza & Mya Pronschinske & Matthew Walker, 2011. "Perceived Organizational Motives and Consumer Responses to Proactive and Reactive CSR," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(4), pages 639-652, September.
    3. Wenyan Zhou & Oliver Hinz & Alexander Benlian, 2018. "The impact of the package opening process on product returns," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 11(2), pages 279-308, September.
    4. Chen, Ke & Chen, Jianxun & Zhan, Wu & Sharma, Piyush, 2020. "When in Rome! Complaint contagion effect in multi-actor service ecosystems," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 628-641.
    5. Wang, Saerom & Kirillova, Ksenia & Lehto, Xinran, 2017. "Reconciling unsatisfying tourism experiences: Message type effectiveness and the role of counterfactual thinking," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 233-243.
    6. Sharifi, Seyed Shahin & Aghazadeh, Hashem, 2016. "Discount reference moderates customers' reactions to discount frames after online service failure," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4074-4080.
    7. Vikas Singla & Gaurav Gupta, 2019. "Emotional Branding Scale and Its Role in Formation of Brand Trust," Paradigm, , vol. 23(2), pages 148-163, December.
    8. Park, Junsung & Yoo, Joon Woo & Cho, Youngju & Park, Heejun, 2023. "Examining the impact of service robot communication styles on customer intimacy following service failure," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    9. Alexander Mafael & Sascha Raithel & Stefan J. Hock, 2022. "Managing customer satisfaction after a product recall: the joint role of remedy, brand equity, and severity," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 174-194, January.
    10. Siret, Iris & Sabadie, William, 2022. "Public complaining: A blessing in disguise? Educational calling as a benevolent process that gives consumers voice on brands’ social media," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 476-490.
    11. Weitzl, Wolfgang J. & Einwiller, Sabine A., 2020. "Profiling (un-)committed online complainants: Their characteristics and post-webcare reactions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 740-753.
    12. In-Hye Kang & Amna Kirmani, 2024. "Lying and Cheating the Company: The Positive and Negative Effects of Corporate Activism on Unethical Consumer Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 39-56, June.
    13. Wiese, Melanie & van der Westhuizen, Liezl-Marié, 2024. "Impact of planned power outages (load shedding) on consumers in developing countries: Evidence from South Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    14. Chao Miao & Michael J. Barone & Shanshan Qian & Ronald H. Humphrey, 2019. "Emotional intelligence and service quality: a meta-analysis with initial evidence on cross-cultural factors and future research directions," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 335-347, December.
    15. Tuzovic, Sven & Simpson, Merlin C. & Kuppelwieser, Volker G. & Finsterwalder, Jörg, 2014. "From ‘free’ to fee: Acceptability of airline ancillary fees and the effects on customer behavior," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 98-107.
    16. Hino, Hayiel, 2023. "More than just empathy: The influence of moral emotions on boycott participation regarding products sourced from politically contentious regions," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(1).
    17. RiHyun Shin & Jin-Woo Park & DongRyeol Choi, 2024. "Disruptive Passenger Behavior Impact on Overall Service Experience: An Appraisal Theory Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-18, March.
    18. Demoulin, Nathalie & Willems, Kim, 2019. "Servicescape irritants and customer satisfaction: The moderating role of shopping motives and involvement," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 295-306.
    19. Arora, Swapan Deep & Chakraborty, Anirban, 2021. "Intellectual structure of consumer complaining behavior (CCB) research: A bibliometric analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 60-74.
    20. Lv, Xingyang & Liu, Yue & Luo, Jingjing & Liu, Yuqing & Li, Chunxiao, 2021. "Does a cute artificial intelligence assistant soften the blow? The impact of cuteness on customer tolerance of assistant service failure," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:168:y:2023:i:c:s0148296323005829. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.