Understanding why anger predicts intention to complain among high but not low power customers: A test of competing models

Min, Hyounae (Kelly), Jeff Joireman and Hyun Jeong Kim

Journal of Business Research, 2019, vol. 95, issue C, 93-102

Abstract: While anger is a strong predictor of customer complaining, it is possible that some angry customers do not complain, and some customers who are not angry do complain. To better understand anger's role in customer complaining, the current work tests the hypothesis that the relationship between anger and complaining intention is contingent on the customer's power state. Specifically, anger is posited to relate positively to complaining intention among high but not low power consumers. More importantly, two competing models are tested which explain why anger may not predict complaining among low power customers (i.e., low power suppressing vs. low power compensating). Two experiments reveal that a low-power state reduces the relationship between anger and complaining, resulting in a moderate level of complaining intention overall, supporting a hybrid model integrating the low power suppressing and low power compensating models. Theoretical and practical implications and future research directions are discussed.

Keywords: Power; Anger; Cognitive appraisal theory; Customer complaining intention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296318304909
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:95:y:2019:i:c:p:93-102

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.10.017

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().