I should have known better!: When firm-caused failure leads to self-image concerns and reduces negative word-of-mouth

Existing work suggests that consumers are most likely to share negative word-of-mouth (WOM) about a dissatisfying experience when they blame the firm. The current work, however, shows that consumers are sometimes reticent to share such WOM, because they believe it could cause them to appear incompetent. This occurs when consumers can generate counterfactuals in which they took some action(s) to avoid the dissatisfying outcome, a phenomenon we label retrospective purchase mutability (RPM). RPM causes consumers to accept some self-blame for dissatisfying outcomes, even those they perceive to be firm-caused, which leads them to believe that sharing information about the outcome could make them appear incompetent. The current work helps explain when firm-caused dissatisfying experiences lead to negative WOM and when they may not. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.