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The effect of frontline employees’ personal self-disclosure on consumers’ encounter experience

Pernille K. Andersson, Anders Gustafsson, Per Kristensson and Wästlund, Erik

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2016, vol. 30, issue C, 40-49

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how frontline employee self-disclosure influences consumers’ reciprocal behavior. To investigate the effects of frontline employee self-disclosure, two experiments were conducted with a total sample of 475 participants. The results show that when frontline employees disclose personal information in one-time encounters, they are perceived as less competent and more superficial. The results also show that self-disclosure negatively affects reciprocal behavior, but that this is mediated through liking, competence, superficiality, and satisfaction. These findings suggest that it is not always beneficial for employees to use self-disclosure as a strategy for garnering a consumer's trust or satisfaction, which counters previous research that suggest that disclosure of personal information is a good way to positively influence consumers in the retail environment.

Keywords: Self-disclosure; Frontline employee; Encounter experience; Social impression; Satisfaction; Reciprocal behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:30:y:2016:i:c:p:40-49

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2015.12.004

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