Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Dissatisfaction and violation: two distinct consequences of the wait experience

Dissatisfaction and violation: two distinct consequences of the wait experience Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore the theory that dissatisfaction and violation are distinct affective responses to a service wait. It was thought that dissatisfaction was a consequence of a disconfirmation of expectations while violation was a consequence of a breach of a psychological contract. Design/methodology/approach– The study used the critical incidents method to examine 144 consumption stories where an informant experienced a wait in a service situation. Findings– It was found that consumers generally felt disappointed or dissatisfied when they experienced a wait when they had expectations about waiting time. When they believed that service provider had made concrete representations (or promises) about the length of time it would take to deliver a service, they felt angry or outraged. These are elements of the overall affective state of violation. Research limitations/implications– The critical incidents technique is well used in services marketing and rich theory building method of investigation. It has known limitations. In addition to explaining reaction to waits and delays, the application of psychological contract theory might apply to a host of marketing phenomena and the theory explains why some consumers get frustrated and angry while others are merely dissatisfied. Originality/value– There are two significant contributions of this paper. First, the psychological contract exists in service marketing situations and that the psychological contract is different from consumer expectations about the service encounter. Second, dissatisfaction is distinct from violation as violation is a strong emotional response to breach of the psychological contract in the service encounter. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Service Theory and Practice Emerald Publishing

Dissatisfaction and violation: two distinct consequences of the wait experience

Download PDF
20 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/dissatisfaction-and-violation-two-distinct-consequences-of-the-wait-obs11uVZY3

References (77)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
2055-6225
DOI
10.1108/JSTP-10-2013-0237
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore the theory that dissatisfaction and violation are distinct affective responses to a service wait. It was thought that dissatisfaction was a consequence of a disconfirmation of expectations while violation was a consequence of a breach of a psychological contract. Design/methodology/approach– The study used the critical incidents method to examine 144 consumption stories where an informant experienced a wait in a service situation. Findings– It was found that consumers generally felt disappointed or dissatisfied when they experienced a wait when they had expectations about waiting time. When they believed that service provider had made concrete representations (or promises) about the length of time it would take to deliver a service, they felt angry or outraged. These are elements of the overall affective state of violation. Research limitations/implications– The critical incidents technique is well used in services marketing and rich theory building method of investigation. It has known limitations. In addition to explaining reaction to waits and delays, the application of psychological contract theory might apply to a host of marketing phenomena and the theory explains why some consumers get frustrated and angry while others are merely dissatisfied. Originality/value– There are two significant contributions of this paper. First, the psychological contract exists in service marketing situations and that the psychological contract is different from consumer expectations about the service encounter. Second, dissatisfaction is distinct from violation as violation is a strong emotional response to breach of the psychological contract in the service encounter.

Journal

Journal of Service Theory and Practice – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jan 12, 2015

There are no references for this article.