As consequências da satisfação do consumidor em contextos de falha e recuperação de serviços online: um estudo intercultural em países emergentes

Abstract

This research presents an investigation about service failure and problems faced by consumers when shopping virtually, in order to extend the field of study on service marketing. Considering the growth in the access to internet, mainly in emergent countries such as Brazil, India and China, the online trade has also experienced a consistent increase within these countries. Having in mind the lack of studies that analyze the most frequent failures when shopping through the internet, and compare consumers of emergent countries, the main goal of this research is to investigate the influence of cultural dimensions in the answers consumers offer in service failure situations. The comprehension of consumer behavior in these situations, the identification of cultural aspects which have influence in the process, as well as its relation to the reaction of consumers, were also the aim of this study. A theoretical model was proposed to identify the main antecedent, consequent and moderator constructs of satisfaction. In order to test this model empirically a survey was performed with a sample of 582 consumers who have faced online failures in Brazil, India and China. The data was analyzed using the statistic technique Structural Equations Modeling (SEM). The results demonstrated that in this context consumer satisfaction after virtual failure recovery has a positive impact on repurchase intentions and reduces the propensity to engage in complaint behavior, such as voice, third-party or private response. Among the antecedents, the perception of interpersonal justice presented the greatest impact on consumer satisfaction. Considering cultural dimensions, humane orientation has been identified as a moderator between consumer satisfaction and complaint behavior. Besides of that, taking into consideration the contextual variables, previous experience with the website has shown a stronger impact on satisfaction and complaint constructs, while failure severity has a stronger and negative impact on repurchase intentions.