Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the cultural variability in assessing the severity of a service failure. Design/methodology/approach – Two separate studies were conducted. The first investigates differences in the perception of service failures across two cultural pools of subjects...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper insight on the psychological mechanism of customer forgiveness viewed from a cross cultural perspective. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory, this paper relates forgiveness cognitive, emotional and...

Based on Allport (1954) paradigm of “in-group love and out-group hate”, this research posits that interpersonal conflicts are more likely to be pursued when allocentric customers are faced with an out-group service employee, leading to a confrontational response such as revenge. However, if...