Relative deprivation in solving unfair customer reviews

Juan Liu, Runzhe Yu, Jing Li and Shijia Wang

Annals of Tourism Research, 2025, vol. 111, issue C

Abstract: Although unfair negative customer reviews are gaining scholarly attention, research on addressing them to attract third-party customer support is in its infancy. This study assumes a social identity perspective in exploring how firms should respond to such reviews. Three experiments reveal several noteworthy findings: 1) perceived relative deprivation of third-party customers, arising from firms' responses to customer-generated unfair negative reviews, fosters support for firms; 2) group identification and empathy serially mediate this effect; and 3) emoji styles (aggressive vs. affiliative) represent a boundary condition of the impacts of perceived relative deprivation. These results enrich theories related to unfair customer reviews and emojis. This study also informs strategies to help tourism and hospitality firms manage unfair customer reviews.

Keywords: Unfair negative reviews; Perceived relative deprivation; Group identification; Empathy; Supportive customer responses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:anture:v:111:y:2025:i:c:s0160738325000337

DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2025.103927

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