Organizational Response to Goods Failure Complaints: The Role of Culture on Perceptions of Interactional Justice and Customer Satisfaction

Abstract

It is well recognized that in a service failure context, cultural value orientations interact with firm responses to service failures to influence perceptions of fairness (justice) and satisfaction. We examine whether this effect is applicable in the case of goods failure complaint context. Using an experimental design with data from Hong Kong and Canada, we investigate how customer evaluations of firm responses are influenced by interplay of consumers’ value orientation and nature of firm responses to the goods failure complaint [whether complaint resolution is initiated by the firm (vs. initiated by the customer), customer is informed about the progress of complaint resolution (vs. not informed about the progress)]. Our findings reveal that the cultural values of collectivism and uncertainty avoidance do interact with the nature of firm’s response to influence perception of interactional justice. Finally, interactional justice positively impacts overall complaint resolution satisfaction.