An Exploration of Customer Misbehaviors in the Professional Services Sector: A Macro Perspective

This study explores customer misbehaviors in the professional services context. Specifically, the study examines the nature, the type, and the extent to which customer misbehaviors take place in the professional service sector compared to the non-professional services sector. For a comprehensive exploration, the study applied a macro-oriented perspective using the theory of justice to incorporate a spectrum of both overt and covert consumer misbehaviors. The presence of distributive misbehaviors, procedural misbehaviors, and interactional misbehaviors was observed in the professional services sector. Notably, the professional service providers were found to experience the procedural misbehaviors at the same level with the nonprofessional service providers do. Managerial implications and future research directions are provided.