The relationship of service failure severity, service recovery justice and perceived switching costs with customer loyalty in the context of e-tailing

  • Authors:

  • Yi-Shun Wang;Shun-Cheng Wu;Hsin-Hui Lin;Yu-Yin Wang

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Information Management, National Changhua University of Education, No. 2, Shi-da Road, Changhua 500, Taiwan;Department of International Business, Vanung University, No.1, Van-Nung Road, Chung-Li, Tao-Yuan 320, Taiwan;Department of Logistics, National Taichung Institute of Technology, 129 Sec. 3, Sanmin Road, Taichung City 404, Taiwan;Department of Information Management, National Sun Yat-sen University, No. 70, Lian-hai Road, Kaohsiung 804, Taiwan

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
  • Year:
  • 2011

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Given that e-tailing service failure is inevitable, a better understanding of how service failure and recovery affect customer loyalty represents an important topic for academics and practitioners. This study explores the relationship of service failure severity, service recovery justice (i.e., interactional justice, procedural justice, and distributive justice), and perceived switching costs with customer loyalty; as well, the moderating relationship of service recovery justice and perceived switching costs on the link between service failure severity and customer loyalty in the context of e-tailing are investigated. Data collected from 221 useful respondents are tested against the research model using the partial least squares (PLS) approach. The results indicate that service failure severity, interactional justice, procedural justice and perceived switching costs have a significant relationship with customer loyalty, and that interactional justice can mitigate the negative relationship between service failure severity and customer loyalty. These findings provide several important theoretical and practical implications in terms of e-tailing service failure and recovery.