Abstract
This paper examines an interesting research question: how does a service failure that happen to a stranger customer influence an observing customer's service evaluation? Drawing on the defensive attribution theory and regulatory focus theory, we argue that an observing customer will attribute more (vs. less) blame to the company if the customer involved in the undesirable incident is personally similar (vs. not similar) to him/her. These attributions, in turn, will influence the observing customers to form a negative evaluation on service quality of the company. More importantly, a prevention-focused tendency will intensify the negative impact of personal similarity on service evaluation. Results from two experiments confirmed the hypotheses.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 213-220 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | International Journal of Hospitality Management |
Volume | 30 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Mar 2011 |
Scopus Subject Areas
- Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management
- Strategy and Management
User-Defined Keywords
- Attribution
- Personal similarity
- Regulatory focus
- Service failures