Perceived Reasonableness and Morals in Service Encounters

Companies have a moral responsibility to treat customers fairly. One way for companies to do so is to allow their employees to exercise reasonableness in their interactions with customers. We define reasonableness as a latitude or space that exists around expectations in the delivery of service. In...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Fukawa, Nobuyuki (Author) ; Erevelles, Sunil (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2014
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2014, Volume: 125, Issue: 3, Pages: 381-400
Further subjects:B service quality
B Cognitive mapping
B Ethical Responsibility
B Morals
B Reasonableness
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Description
Summary:Companies have a moral responsibility to treat customers fairly. One way for companies to do so is to allow their employees to exercise reasonableness in their interactions with customers. We define reasonableness as a latitude or space that exists around expectations in the delivery of service. In this paper, we explore the concept of reasonableness from a customer’s perspective (i.e., perceived reasonableness) and the role that the morals of service personnel play in customers’ perceptions of reasonableness. First, through an open-ended survey on customers’ unreasonable service experiences, we identify themes of perceived reasonableness. We also discuss the role that the morals of service personnel play within these themes. Second, in order to identify the relationships between these themes, we create a cognitive map and discuss the implications of the identified relationships. Finally, we provide directions for future research on reasonableness.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-013-1918-5