How frontline employees' communication styles affect consumers' willingness to interact: The boundary condition of emotional ability similarity

Qi Yao, Ling Kuai and Cheng Lu Wang

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2022, vol. 68, issue C

Abstract: This research explored the impacts of frontline employees' communication styles (task-oriented vs. social-oriented) on consumers' willingness to interact. The hypothesized relationship between communication style and willingness to interact was tested based on two experiments and analyzed by ANOVA and PROCESS program. The results revealed that consumers' willingness to interact was higher when frontline employees adopted a social-oriented style, while social distance mediated this influence. We identified emotional ability similarity as a boundary condition, indicating that social-oriented communication is more effective than task-oriented when there is low emotional ability similarity. However, when the emotional ability similarity is high, both communication styles positively influence consumers' willingness to interact. Theoretical contributions, managerial applications, and future research directions are discussed.

Keywords: Communication style; Willingness to interact; Emotional ability similarity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698922001758
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:joreco:v:68:y:2022:i:c:s0969698922001758

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2022.103082

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services is currently edited by Harry Timmermans

More articles in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().