Service Recovery\u27s Influence on Complainant Attitudes and Intentions: A Perceived Justice Framework.

I conducted two field studies (one in the banking industry, n = 692, and one in the new home industry, n = 339) that examined service recovery\u27s influence on complainant perceptions of perceived justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, and interactional justice), satisfaction (i.e., transaction-specific satisfaction and overall firm satisfaction), and intentions (i.e., word-of-mouth intent and purchase intent). The studies assessed these perceptions over multiple time periods (i.e., post failure, post service recovery, and two weeks subsequent to service recovery) to better capture the perceptions as they form over time. The dissertation uses an equity theory framework in a service recovery context, where the model tests the direct influence that justice may have on both transaction-specific and overall satisfaction with a failing firm. The model then posits that satisfaction perceptions directly influence one\u27s propensity to recommend a firm, as well as repurchase in the future. The model asserts that perceived justice best explains positive word-of-mouth and purchase intentions indirectly through satisfaction. Across the two studies, the model explained 38 to 45 percent of the variance in transaction-specific satisfaction; 40 to 44 percent of the variance in overall firm satisfaction; 34 to 38 percent of the variance in word-of-mouth; and 32 to 36 percent of the variance in purchase intent. The results support the assertion that distributive justice is more influential in forming transaction-specific perceptions, while procedural justice is more influential in forming overall perceptions (Lind and Tyler 1988; McFarlin and Sweeney 1992). The results also suggest that consumers may view product and service failures differently. Specifically, consumers who experience product failures may be most concerned about distributive justice (compared with procedural and interactional justice). Consumers experiencing service failures, alternatively, seem to not only expect distributive justice, but also expect higher levels (relative to those experiencing product failures) of procedural and interactional justice. Lastly, the data here suggest that transaction-specific satisfaction is the best route to positive word-of-mouth recommendations, while overall firm satisfaction is the best route to future purchase intentions

The Retail Value Chain: Linking Employee Perceptions to Employee Performance, Customer Evaluations, and Store Performance

The authors test a value chain model entailing a progression of influence from retail employee job perceptions -> retail employee job performances -> customer evaluations -> customer spending and comparable store sales growth. The authors test the model using three matched samples of 1,615 retail employees, 57,656 customers, and 306 stores of a single retail chain. The authors find that three retail employee job perceptions (conscientiousness, perceived organizational justice, and organizational identification) have main and interactive effects on three dimensions of employee job performance (in-role performance, extra-role performance toward customers, and extra-role performance toward the organization). In turn, these performance dimensions exert influence on customer evaluations of the retailer (a satisfaction, purchase intent, loyalty, and word-of-mouth composite). The authors also show that employee perceptions exert a direct influence on customer evaluations, and that customer evaluations affect retail store performance (customer spending and comparable store sales growth). Finally, the authors conduct some simple simulations that show: (1) how changes in employee perceptions may raise average employee performances; (2) how changes in employee performances enhance average customer evaluations; and (3) how changes in customer evaluations raise average customer spending and comparable store sales growth. The authors then show that employee job perceptions and performances “ripple thru the system” to affect customer spending and store sales growth. The authors offer implications for theory and practice.retail value chain, customer service employees, customer satisfaction, customer spending, sales growth