When in Rome! Complaint contagion effect in multi-actor service ecosystems

© 2020 Elsevier Inc. This paper explores the process by which other customers’ complaint behavior influences the focal customers’ complaint intentions in response to a service failure affecting multiple customers. The authors use social information processing theory to argue that the other customers...

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Main Authors: Chen, Ke, Chen, Jianxun, Wu, Zhan, Sharma, Piyush
Format: Journal Article
Published: Elsevier 2020
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/77683
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author Chen, Ke
Chen, Jianxun
Wu, Zhan
Sharma, Piyush
author_facet Chen, Ke
Chen, Jianxun
Wu, Zhan
Sharma, Piyush
author_sort Chen, Ke
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description © 2020 Elsevier Inc. This paper explores the process by which other customers’ complaint behavior influences the focal customers’ complaint intentions in response to a service failure affecting multiple customers. The authors use social information processing theory to argue that the other customers’ complaint behavior has a positive effect on the focal customers’ complaint intentions, which they refer to as ‘complaint contagion effect’. Next, they posit mediating role of anger and moderating effects of social identification with other customers, perceived credibility of the other customers, and the focal customers’ prior relationship with the service provider in this process. Four experiments confirm the presence of complaint contagion effect and show that the complaint contagion effect is stronger for focal customers with high social identification with others, high perceived credibility of other customers and weak prior relationship of focal customers with the service providers.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T11:10:42Z
format Journal Article
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T11:10:42Z
publishDate 2020
publisher Elsevier
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-776832024-06-06T02:02:40Z When in Rome! Complaint contagion effect in multi-actor service ecosystems Chen, Ke Chen, Jianxun Wu, Zhan Sharma, Piyush © 2020 Elsevier Inc. This paper explores the process by which other customers’ complaint behavior influences the focal customers’ complaint intentions in response to a service failure affecting multiple customers. The authors use social information processing theory to argue that the other customers’ complaint behavior has a positive effect on the focal customers’ complaint intentions, which they refer to as ‘complaint contagion effect’. Next, they posit mediating role of anger and moderating effects of social identification with other customers, perceived credibility of the other customers, and the focal customers’ prior relationship with the service provider in this process. Four experiments confirm the presence of complaint contagion effect and show that the complaint contagion effect is stronger for focal customers with high social identification with others, high perceived credibility of other customers and weak prior relationship of focal customers with the service providers. 2020 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/77683 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.01.051 Elsevier fulltext
spellingShingle Chen, Ke
Chen, Jianxun
Wu, Zhan
Sharma, Piyush
When in Rome! Complaint contagion effect in multi-actor service ecosystems
title When in Rome! Complaint contagion effect in multi-actor service ecosystems
title_full When in Rome! Complaint contagion effect in multi-actor service ecosystems
title_fullStr When in Rome! Complaint contagion effect in multi-actor service ecosystems
title_full_unstemmed When in Rome! Complaint contagion effect in multi-actor service ecosystems
title_short When in Rome! Complaint contagion effect in multi-actor service ecosystems
title_sort when in rome! complaint contagion effect in multi-actor service ecosystems
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/77683