불평고객의 부정적 감정과 지각된 기업의 사회적 책임성이 마케터실패복구의 결과에 미치는 영향

The research consists of two studies. [Study 1] is to investigate whether customers think moreabout corporate social responsibility (CSR) after the event of marketer failure and recoverythan usual. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used for the analysis. The results showthat customers become more sensitive about CSR after the experience of marketer failure andrecovery. This means that customers think the firm's business ethicality and its way of makingrelationships with society more important after the failure event than before they didn't gothrough the marketer failure yet. Complainants' cognitive information processing turns morecritical, more systematic, and more extensive after the failure and recovery experience. PerceivedCSR has more direct impact on customer trust and more indirect impact on RPI and WOMintention via customer trust after the event. [Study 2] was focused on the antecedents and their underlying mechanism that promotes thesensitivity and impacts of perceived CSR after the marketer failure and recovery. Based onmoral intuition theory, the negative emotions caused on the phase 1 by the failure itself andaroused during phase 2 when customer complaining is initiated and then the firm's recoveryactivities are conducted were hypothesized to increase negative perception of CSR and decreasecustomer trust. Structural Equation Modeling also used to test the hypotheses of [Study 2]. The results show that the negative emotions on phase 1 have negative direct effect on customertrust but no impact on perceived CSR. To the contrary, the negative emotions on phase 2promote negative CSR perception but no direct effect on customer trust. The negative emotions on 1st phase amplify the negative emotions on 2nd phase. Negative emotions on 2nd phasehave an indirect effect on customer trust via perceived CSR. The results from Study 1 & 2 imply that the customer experience of marketer failure andrecovery changes his/her evaluation tendency on the firm more sensitively and more critically,leading to a cross-over of the perception boundaries from ‘me-firm’ domain to ‘society-firm’domain. Customers become morally strict when they make decisions on future behavior regardingthe firm that committed a failure. Interestingly, the negative emotions caused by the failureitself don't deteriorate CSR perception but the negative emotions provoked during complainingand recovery stage have the fatal effect on CSR perception. Another shot of dissatisfactionduring the recovery will amplify complainant's negative emotions and finally end up with thecustomers' doubt about the fundamentals such as business ethicality of the firm. Firms shoulddevote themselves to protect and purify the complainant's emotions especially during therecovery stage. Further theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. Limitations andsuggestions for future research are also presented.