IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joreco/v59y2021ics0969698920313515.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social learning effects of complaint handling on social media: Self-construal as a moderator

Author

Listed:
  • Ku, Hsuan-Hsuan
  • Shang, Rong-An
  • Fu, Yi-Fan

Abstract

With the proliferation of social media, firms are increasingly faced with the need to respond publicly to reduce the negative effects of customer complaints. Based on social learning theory, this study examines how complaint handling efforts and comments by others may affect the responses exhibited by individuals who demonstrated either independent or interdependent self-construal. A quasi-experimental design with a sample of 247 student participants was conducted. The results show that although unsuccessful complaint handling was likely to erode perceived trust, such effects were confined to individuals with independent self-construal. Furthermore, observers with interdependent self-construal evoked more positive perception if others disconfirmed the complainants’ experiences rather than approved with negative posts; this effect was not evident for the independents.

Suggested Citation

  • Ku, Hsuan-Hsuan & Shang, Rong-An & Fu, Yi-Fan, 2021. "Social learning effects of complaint handling on social media: Self-construal as a moderator," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:59:y:2021:i:c:s0969698920313515
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102343
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698920313515
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102343?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lee, Angela Y. & Aaker, Jennifer L. & Gardner, Wendi L., 2000. "The Pleasures and Pains of Distinct Self-Construals: The Role of Interdependence in Regulatory Focus," Research Papers 1577r, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    2. Chen, Yubo & Fay, Scott & Wang, Qi, 2011. "The Role of Marketing in Social Media: How Online Consumer Reviews Evolve," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 85-94.
    3. Kordrostami, Elika & Rahmani, Vahid, 2020. "Investigating conflicting online review information:evidence from Amazon.com," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    4. Wang, Tien & Lee, Fu-Yu, 2020. "Examining customer engagement and brand intimacy in social media context," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    5. Mandel, Naomi, 2003. "Shifting Selves and Decision Making: The Effects of Self-Construal Priming on Consumer Risk-Taking," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(1), pages 30-40, June.
    6. Weitzl, Wolfgang & Hutzinger, Clemens, 2017. "The effects of marketer- and advocate-initiated online service recovery responses on silent bystanders," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 164-175.
    7. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    8. Sheena Lovia Boateng & Bedman Narteh, 2016. "Online relationship marketing and affective customer commitment – The mediating role of trust," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(2), pages 127-140, June.
    9. Kristine de Valck & Roberts V. Kozinets & Andrea C. Wojnicki & Sarah J.S. Wilner, 2010. "Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities," Post-Print hal-00458424, HAL.
    10. Jung, Na Young & Seock, Yoo-Kyoung, 2017. "Effect of service recovery on customers’ perceived justice, satisfaction, and word-of-mouth intentions on online shopping websites," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 23-30.
    11. Nisar, Tahir M. & Prabhakar, Guru & Ilavarasan, P. Vigneswara & Baabdullah, Abdullah M., 2020. "Up the ante: Electronic word of mouth and its effects on firm reputation and performance," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    12. Bougoure, Ursula Sigrid & Russell-Bennett, Rebekah & Fazal-E-Hasan, Syed & Mortimer, Gary, 2016. "The impact of service failure on brand credibility," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 62-71.
    13. Huifang Mao & Xingbo Li & Kalpesh Kaushik Desai & Shailendra Pratap Jain, 2016. "Self-construal and feature centrality," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 781-789, December.
    14. Linda D. Hollebeek & Rajendra K. Srivastava & Tom Chen, 2019. "S-D logic–informed customer engagement: integrative framework, revised fundamental propositions, and application to CRM," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 161-185, January.
    15. Davide Proserpio & Georgios Zervas, 2017. "Online Reputation Management: Estimating the Impact of Management Responses on Consumer Reviews," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(5), pages 645-665, September.
    16. Andrew E. Wilson & Michael D. Giebelhausen & Michael K. Brady, 2017. "Negative word of mouth can be a positive for consumers connected to the brand," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 45(4), pages 534-547, July.
    17. Yany Grégoire & Renaud Legoux & Thomas M. Tripp & Marie-Louise Radanielina-Hita & Jeffrey Joireman & Jeffrey D. Rotman, 2019. "What Do Online Complainers Want? An Examination of the Justice Motivations and the Moral Implications of Vigilante and Reparation Schemas," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 167-188, November.
    18. Ismagilova, Elvira & Dwivedi, Yogesh K. & Slade, Emma, 2020. "Perceived helpfulness of eWOM: Emotions, fairness and rationality," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    19. Haiyang Yang & Antonios Stamatogiannakis & Amitava Chattopadhyay, 2015. "Pursuing Attainment versus Maintenance Goals: The Interplay of Self-Construal and Goal Type on Consumer Motivation," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 93-108.
    20. Jebarajakirthy, Charles & Das, Manish, 2020. "How self-construal drives intention for status consumption: A moderated mediated mechanism," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    21. Islam, Jamid Ul & Hollebeek, Linda D. & Rahman, Zillur & Khan, Imran & Rasool, Aaleya, 2019. "Customer engagement in the service context: An empirical investigation of the construct, its antecedents and consequences," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 277-285.
    22. David Godes & Dina Mayzlin & Yubo Chen & Sanjiv Das & Chrysanthos Dellarocas & Bruce Pfeiffer & Barak Libai & Subrata Sen & Mengze Shi & Peeter Verlegh, 2005. "The Firm's Management of Social Interactions," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 415-428, December.
    23. Goodwin, Cathy & Ross, Ivan, 1992. "Consumer responses to service failures: Influence of procedural and interactional fairness perceptions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 149-163, September.
    24. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    25. Ismagilova, Elvira & Slade, Emma & Rana, Nripendra P. & Dwivedi, Yogesh K., 2020. "The effect of characteristics of source credibility on consumer behaviour: A meta-analysis," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    26. Katherine White & Jennifer J. Argo, 2011. "When Imitation Doesn't Flatter: The Role of Consumer Distinctiveness in Responses to Mimicry," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 38(4), pages 667-680.
    27. Zhao, Yan & Wen, Lingling & Feng, Xiangnan & Li, Ran & Lin, Xiaolin, 2020. "How managerial responses to online reviews affect customer satisfaction: An empirical study based on additional reviews," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    28. James C. Ward & Amy L. Ostrom, 2006. "Complaining to the Masses: The Role of Protest Framing in Customer-Created Complaint Web Sites," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(2), pages 220-230, July.
    29. Sushil Bikhchandani & David Hirshleifer & Ivo Welch, 1998. "Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 151-170, Summer.
    30. Theodoros Lappas & Gaurav Sabnis & Georgios Valkanas, 2016. "The Impact of Fake Reviews on Online Visibility: A Vulnerability Assessment of the Hotel Industry," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 940-961, December.
    31. Aaker, Jennifer L & Lee, Angela Y, 2001. ""I" Seek Pleasures and "We" Avoid Pains: The Role of Self-Regulatory Goals in Information Processing and Persuasion," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(1), pages 33-49, June.
    32. Zhu, Yu-Qian & Chen, Houn-Gee, 2015. "Social media and human need satisfaction: Implications for social media marketing," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 335-345.
    33. Marius Johnen & Oliver Schnittka, 2019. "When pushing back is good: the effectiveness of brand responses to social media complaints," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 858-878, September.
    34. V. Kumar & Bharath Rajan & Shaphali Gupta & Ilaria Dalla Pozza, 2019. "Customer engagement in service," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 138-160, January.
    35. Jiewen Hong & Hannah H. Chang, 2015. ""I" Follow My Heart and "We" Rely on Reasons: The Impact of Self-Construal on Reliance on Feelings versus Reasons in Decision Making," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 41(6), pages 1392-1411.
    36. Li, Kunlin & Chen, Yuhan & Zhang, Liyi, 2020. "Exploring the influence of online reviews and motivating factors on sales: A meta-analytic study and the moderating role of product category," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    37. Gerri Spassova & Angela Y. Lee, 2013. "Looking into the Future: A Match between Self-View and Temporal Distance," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 159-171.
    38. Michael Luca & Georgios Zervas, 2016. "Fake It Till You Make It: Reputation, Competition, and Yelp Review Fraud," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3412-3427, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zafar, Abaid Ullah & Shen, Jie & Ashfaq, Muhammad & Shahzad, Mohsin, 2021. "Social media and sustainable purchasing attitude: Role of trust in social media and environmental effectiveness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    2. Tsai, Pei-Hsuan & Chen, Chih-Jou & Hsiao, Wei-Hung & Lin, Chin-Tsai, 2023. "Factors influencing the consumers’ behavioural intention to use online food delivery service: Empirical evidence from Taiwan," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    3. Söderlund, Magnus, 2023. "Moderator variables in consumer research: A call for caution," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    4. Honora, Andreawan & Chih, Wen-Hai & Wang, Kai-Yu, 2022. "Managing social media recovery: The important role of service recovery transparency in retaining customers," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    5. Xu, Xing'an & Liu, Juan & Gursoy, Dogan, 2022. "Emotional intelligence similarity in service recovery," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hung-Pin Shih & Pei-Chen Sung, 2021. "Addressing the Review-Based Learning and Private Information Approaches to Foster Platform Continuance," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 649-661, June.
    2. Shavitt, Sharon & Barnes, Aaron J., 2020. "Culture and the Consumer Journey," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 40-54.
    3. Gao, Mengjia & Huang, Lin, 2021. "Quality of channel integration and customer loyalty in omnichannel retailing: The mediating role of customer engagement and relationship program receptiveness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    4. Surachartkumtonkun, Jiraporn (Nui) & Grace, Debra & Ross, Mitchell, 2021. "Unfair customer reviews: Third-party perceptions and managerial responses," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 631-640.
    5. Marius Johnen & Oliver Schnittka, 2019. "When pushing back is good: the effectiveness of brand responses to social media complaints," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 858-878, September.
    6. Wang, Yichuan & Yu, Chiahui, 2017. "Social interaction-based consumer decision-making model in social commerce: The role of word of mouth and observational learning," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 179-189.
    7. Guo, Qiaozhen & Chen, Ying-Ju & Huang, Wei, 2022. "Dynamic pricing of new experience products with dual-channel social learning and online review manipulations," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    8. Chen Jin & Luyi Yang & Kartik Hosanagar, 2023. "To Brush or Not to Brush: Product Rankings, Consumer Search, and Fake Orders," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 34(2), pages 532-552, June.
    9. Wei He & Qian Wang, 2020. "The peer effect of corporate financial decisions around split share structure reform in China," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(3), pages 474-493, July.
    10. Fishman, Arthur & Fishman, Ram & Gneezy, Uri, 2019. "A tale of two food stands: Observational learning in the field," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 101-108.
    11. Jacob K. Goeree & Leeat Yariv, 2015. "Conformity in the lab," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 15-28, July.
    12. SHIMAMOTO Daichi & Yu Ri KIM & TODO Yasuyuki, 2019. "The Effect of Social Interactions on Exporting Activities: Evidence from Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises in rural Vietnam," Discussion papers 19020, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    13. Davide Crapis & Bar Ifrach & Costis Maglaras & Marco Scarsini, 2017. "Monopoly Pricing in the Presence of Social Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3586-3608, November.
    14. Duan, Yongrui & Liu, Tonghui & Mao, Zhixin, 2022. "How online reviews and coupons affect sales and pricing: An empirical study based on e-commerce platform," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    15. Feri, Francesco & Meléndez-Jiménez, Miguel A. & Ponti, Giovanni & Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2011. "Error cascades in observational learning: An experiment on the Chinos game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 136-146, September.
    16. Puput Tri Komalasari & Marwan Asri & Bernardinus M. Purwanto & Bowo Setiyono, 2022. "Herding behaviour in the capital market: What do we know and what is next?," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 72(3), pages 745-787, September.
    17. Patrick Hummel & Brian Knight, 2015. "Sequential Or Simultaneous Elections? A Welfare Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(3), pages 851-887, August.
    18. Wenjie Dai & Xin Wang & Zengru Di & Jinshan Wu, 2014. "Logical Gaps in the Approximate Solutions of the Social Learning Game and an Exact Solution," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-18, December.
    19. Jonathan E. Alevy & Michael S. Haigh & John List, 2006. "Information Cascades: Evidence from An Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," NBER Working Papers 12767, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Stone, Daniel F. & Miller, Steven J., 2013. "Leading, learning and herding," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 222-231.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:59:y:2021:i:c:s0969698920313515. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.