ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

Although there is a consensus in the literature that relationships between customers and service providers are important during service failure, previous studies do not present conclusive findings as to whether favorable relationships with customers serve to buffer or magnify the negative impact of service failures. These two rival explanations might exist because the studies on the effects of relationship quality have overlooked the role of significant factors that might occur from service encounter. This study examines the severity of service failure that customer could perceive and investigates the interaction effect between the severity of failure and relationship quality on customer`s negative emotion resulting from service problems. Present study used PLS and 2-way ANOVA. The results suggest that the effect of relationship quality on customer`s negative emotion is contingent upon the severity of the failure. In other words, high relationship quality could lower the level of customers` negative emotion. On the other hand, when customers perceived that the failure was serious, high relationship quality could magnify the level of customers` negative emotion. Based on the results, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

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