Stopping the Spread: How Blame Attributions Drive Customer-to-Customer Misbehavior Contagion and What Frontline Employees Can Do to Curb It

TY - JOUR

T1 - Stopping the Spread: How Blame Attributions Drive Customer-to-Customer Misbehavior Contagion and What Frontline Employees Can Do to Curb It

AU - Danatzis, Ilias

AU - Möller-Herm, Jana

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2023.

PY - 2023/2/3

Y1 - 2023/2/3

N2 - Service encounters nowadays are increasingly characterized by customer-to-customer (C2C) interactions where customers regularly become targets of other customers’ misbehavior. Although previous research provides initial evidence of the contagiousness of such C2C misbehavior, it remains unclear whether, how, and why C2C misbehavior spreads when frontline employees (FLEs) are involved and what FLEs can do to curb it. Two online and one field experiment in the context of co-working and transportation services reveal that FLE-directed blame attributions drive the spread of C2C misbehavior while perpetrator-directed blame attributions reverse it. These blame attributions are greater the more severely customers judge other customers’ misbehavior. Findings further rule out alternative contagion mechanisms (social norms and emotional contagion) and show that contagion spills over to C2C misbehavior unrelated to the initial transgression. By specifying how contagion unfolds and by explicating the central role blame attributions play in C2C misbehavior contagion, this research uncovers its social dynamics, thus extending existing theory on customer misbehavior and attribution theory in multi-actor settings. Managerially, this research provides FLEs with explicit guidance on what they should do (personalized FLE interventions delivered either in person or remotely) and avoid doing (disapproving looks, FLE service recovery) when faced with C2C misbehavior.

AB - Service encounters nowadays are increasingly characterized by customer-to-customer (C2C) interactions where customers regularly become targets of other customers’ misbehavior. Although previous research provides initial evidence of the contagiousness of such C2C misbehavior, it remains unclear whether, how, and why C2C misbehavior spreads when frontline employees (FLEs) are involved and what FLEs can do to curb it. Two online and one field experiment in the context of co-working and transportation services reveal that FLE-directed blame attributions drive the spread of C2C misbehavior while perpetrator-directed blame attributions reverse it. These blame attributions are greater the more severely customers judge other customers’ misbehavior. Findings further rule out alternative contagion mechanisms (social norms and emotional contagion) and show that contagion spills over to C2C misbehavior unrelated to the initial transgression. By specifying how contagion unfolds and by explicating the central role blame attributions play in C2C misbehavior contagion, this research uncovers its social dynamics, thus extending existing theory on customer misbehavior and attribution theory in multi-actor settings. Managerially, this research provides FLEs with explicit guidance on what they should do (personalized FLE interventions delivered either in person or remotely) and avoid doing (disapproving looks, FLE service recovery) when faced with C2C misbehavior.

KW - customer misbehavior

KW - frontline employees

KW - blame attributions

KW - employee interventions

KW - COVID-19 pandemic

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85147558811&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - https://doi.org/10.1177/10946705221150441

DO - https://doi.org/10.1177/10946705221150441

M3 - Article

SN - 1094-6705

VL - 26

SP - 459

EP - 475

JO - Journal of Service Research

JF - Journal of Service Research

IS - 3

ER -