What Do Online Complainers Want? An Examination of the Justice Motivations and the Moral Implications of Vigilante and Reparation Schemas

This research aims to understand how two basic schemas—vigilante and reparation—influence online public complaining. Drawing on two experiments, a longitudinal field study and content analysis of online complaints, the current research makes three core contributions. First, we show that for similar...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Authors: Grégoire, Yany (Author) ; Legoux, Renaud (Author) ; Tripp, Thomas M. (Author) ; Radanielina-Hita, Marie-Louise (Author) ; Joireman, Jeffrey (Author) ; Rotman, Jeffrey D. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2019
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2019, Volume: 160, Issue: 1, Pages: 167-188
Further subjects:B Online complaining
B Ethics consumer behavior
B Justice Theory
B textual analysis
B Customer revenge
B Conflict frames
B Cognitive schemas
B Service failure
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:This research aims to understand how two basic schemas—vigilante and reparation—influence online public complaining. Drawing on two experiments, a longitudinal field study and content analysis of online complaints, the current research makes three core contributions. First, we show that for similar service failures, each schema is associated with different justice motivations (i.e., in terms of recovery, revenge, and protection of others), which have different moral implications for consumers. Second, vigilante and reparation complainers write complaints in a different manner and are drawn to different online platforms; this information is helpful to identify complainers using each schema. Third, the schemas moderate the process leading to different post-complaint benefits (i.e., resolution and positive affect). Specifically, perseverance has a greater effect on obtaining a resolution for reparation complainers compared to vigilantes. Additionally, whereas a recovery leads to an increase in positive affect for reparation complainers, vigilantes experience a high level of positive affect simply by posting their complaint (regardless of the resolution). The theoretical, ethical, and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-018-3850-1