Consumer complaint intentions: the impact of general and specific self-confidence

Current research focuses on examining the relationship between consumers’ self-confidence and their intentions to complain. This study addresses the gap in the research literature by categorizing the concept of ‘self-confidence’ into general and specific (GSC/SSC) and assessing their impacts on consumers’ intentions to complain about a company. A conceptual model proposed for the research that was empirically verified using a sample comprising consumers in Swansea, U.K. was employed. The results of the multilevel and polynomial regression indicated that although both GSC and SSC influence consumers’ intentions to complain, GSC cannot moderate the relationship between SSC and complaining intention. Moreover, the findings showed that the impact of SSC on the intention to complain is considerably stronger than the effect of GSC. Therefore, it could be concluded that consumers’ intentions to complain is mainly driven by their specific self-confidence. This study, in addition to laying the groundwork for future research, has important managerial implications. Most notably, the findings confirmed that companies would benefit from enhancing consumers’ SSC and encouraging them to file their complaints directly to the company.