Managing Service Consumer Behavior and Relationship Dynamics in Asia

Theory, Conceptual Framework, And Propositions

The link between respect and rapport on one hand, perceived relationship quality and customer loyalty on the other can be better understood from the perspective of justice or fairness theory. Research on organizational justice shows that perceived organizational fairness enhances commitment to the organization (Folger & Konovsky, 1989). When customers have difficulty in collecting information about the fairness of the organization as a whole; they tend to rely on perceptions of distributive, procedural and/or interactional justice to infer about overall organizational fairness. The fairness theory suggests that customers expect a certain level of distributive, procedural and/or interactional fairness in exchange relationship (Adams, 1963; Anderson and Patterson, 2008). Perceived fairness is thought to have important implication on customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction (e.g., Anderson and Patterson, 2008); customer value and perceived relationship quality, (Nasution, Mavondo, Matanda & Ndubisi, 2011; Ndubisi 2014), commitment (Ndubisi, 2011), and customer loyalty (Ndubisi, 2007a; 2012). Against this background, we reason that if employees of service organizations respect and build rapport with customers, they (customers) will perceive interactional fairness, leading to quality relationship and loyalty. Similarly, they will increase their loyalty if they perceived distributive or procedural fairness in the outcome or process of the service encounter respectively. Because the focus of this research is on interpersonal relationship dynamics, we focus on interactional justice in the analysis. We thus argue that if service providers apply respect and rapport in their interactions with customers, such gestures are often reciprocated through favorable relationship quality perceptions and greater commitment or loyalty to the service provider. Such reciprocal behavior is the underlying argument of other social science theories such as the social exchange theory and equity theory. On the flip side, if one party (the customer) feels s/he has not received a fair interactional outcome or, in equity theory terms, her/his input-output ratio is inferior to that of the service provider or other social actors (Anderson and Patterson, 2008), the result will be poor relationship quality and a lack of commitment and greater likelihood of defection. Thus, justice theory provides a succinct and compelling lens for viewing key aspects of interpersonal relationship dynamics, and can be used to understand the influences of respect and rapport on relationship quality and customer loyalty.