节点文献
顾客与服务提供者关系对顾客参与中的自我服务偏见的影响研究
Self-Serving Bias in Customer Participation: The Impact of Customer-Service Provider Relationship
【作者】 乔时;
【导师】 韩德昌;
【作者基本信息】 南开大学 , 管理学, 2010, 博士
【摘要】 顾客参与反映出顾客的积极角色,涉及顾客为服务生产和传递提供的资源和采取的行动。对于很多服务而言,服务的有效传递和服务质量的保证往往离不开顾客的积极参与。鼓励顾客成为价值的共同创造者被认为是有效竞争的下一个前沿领域也激起了学者们和企业对顾客参与的更大兴趣。虽然很多学者从不同的侧面对顾客参与进行了研究,但是近年来一些学者开始质疑顾客参与对营销相关结果的正面影响并关注顾客在参与过程中的心理认知和反应,研究顾客参与中心理反应的一个最合适的理论视角就是社会心理学领域的自我服务偏见。本文主要基于自我服务偏见理论研究顾客参与中的心理反应,通过四组实验和一组质化研究检验中国的商业情境下,顾客在参与过程中出现的自我服务偏见及其对顾客态度结果的影响,并进一步探索顾客与服务提供者之间的人际关系是否可以作为抑制或减少自我服务偏见的有效机制。主要研究结论如下:第一,通过复制Bendapudi和Leone (2003)对顾客参与中的心理反应进行的经典研究,本研究证实了在中国情境下,当顾客参与到和企业共同生产的过程中同样会出现自我服务偏见,进而影响顾客对企业满意度的评价。不管结果如何(结果好于期望、结果比期望差、结果和期望一致),参与到共同生产过程中的顾客的满意度都要低于没有参与的顾客的满意度。第二,不管是通过情景模拟的方法检验顾客与服务提供者之间关系还是直接检验服务背景下顾客与服务提供者之间自然发生的人际关系,本研究都证实了在服务背景下,顾客与服务提供者之间的亲密关系会抑制顾客参与中的自我服务偏见。具体而言,当顾客与服务提供者之间关系比较陌生或者疏远时,参与到服务中的顾客对好的服务结果(结果好于期望)要比不好的服务结果(结果比期望差)承担更多的责任;当顾客与服务提供者之间存在较为亲密的个人关系时,不管服务最终结果是好于期望还是比期望差,顾客在对结果承担个人责任方面没有差异,即在对好的服务结果要求赞许的同时也会对不好的服务结果承担更多的责任。亲密关系下的顾客要比疏远关系中的顾客更客观、更谦逊地看待自己对服务结果做出的积极贡献。此外,无论结果好于期望还是比期望更差,与服务提供者之间关系亲密的顾客比关系疏远条件下的顾客更满意,这也间接证实了顾客与服务提供者之间的亲密关系可以作为减少自我服务偏见的一种有效机制。第三,通过调查顾客参与程度的调节作用,本研究发现顾客参与的程度会调节顾客与服务提供者之间关系对顾客参与中的自我服务偏见的影响。相对于顾客低度参与的情况,顾客与服务提供者之间的亲密关系对自我服务偏见的影响在顾客高度参与的情况下更强。顾客参与程度也会调节顾客与服务人员关系对顾客参与条件下的满意度的影响效果。相对于顾客低度参与的情况,关系亲密条件下的顾客比关系疏远条件下的顾客在高度参与的情况下具有更高的满意度。第四,本研究通过质化研究方法对中国消费者视角下的顾客与服务提供者之间的关系进行了探索性研究。发现顾客在服务生产和传递的过程中会和服务人员建立起个人间的关系,也包括建立和维系那种类似朋友一样的亲密关系或商业友谊。对中国消费者而言,一些重要的关系要素包括认同、喜欢、了解、信赖、承诺、自我表露、提供帮助等。本研究的主要创新之处在于应用跨学科的交叉研究方法,基于社会科学领域的研究成果对服务情境下顾客参与的心理反应及其影响进行了研究,这就对顾客参与现有理论的普适性进行了检验,并进一步深化了顾客参与的现有研究。本研究对中国情境下服务关系的探索性研究以及对服务关系中人际层面的关系对顾客心理层面的深层影响的研究也拓展了服务领域顾客与服务提供者之间关系的现有研究。在整个研究过程中,文献研究、深度访谈、问卷调查、内容分析、情景模拟的实验方法等多种研究方法和数据分析方法的综合使用也保证了研究的可靠性与科学性。研究结论拓展了营销领域对顾客参与和服务关系领域的现有研究,这也对企业更深入地理解顾客参与和服务关系,更有效地管理顾客参与具有重要的现实意义。文章也指出了本研究的局限性和未来研究方向。
【Abstract】 Customer participation in the production of goods and services appears to be growing. In service, it has been described as a behavioral concept that refers to the actions and resources supplied by customers for service production and delivery. In many services context, outcome and the quality of the resulting service is partially dependent on customer’s active role as co-producer and the quality of the collaboration among service employees and customers.Encouraging customers to be "value co-creators" which is considered the next frontier in competitive effectiveness further inspires both marketing scholars and practitioners to pay more attention on customer participation.Although the different facets of customer participation or customer co-creation of value has been discussed, little is known about the effects participation may have on a customer’s psychological processes and evaluations. Some scholars have suggested that research in social psychology on the self-serving bias (SSB) form an appropriate perspective on customer participation.This study highlights this research interest. Drawing on the social psychological literature on the SSB and personal relationship and using four experiments and one qualitative study, the author explores the effects of SSB on customer satisfaction in Chinese business context and the impact of customer-service provider relationship on the SSB in the process of participation. The major findings are listed as follows:First, the SSB emerges when customers participate in the process of co-creation value in Chinese context. Customer satisfaction with a firm differs depending on whether a customer participates in production. Whether the outcome is better than expected, as expected or worse than expect, a customer who participates in co-production with the firm is less satisfied than is a customer who does not participates in co-production, although this different is not significant when the outcome is worse than expect.Second, relationship closeness between customer and service providers acts as a refraining mechanism to customer’s SSB in participation. That is, customer having a distant relationship with service provider assumes greater responsibility for the good outcome (better than expected) than for the bad outcome (worse than expect), thus manifesting the SSB. Customers who has a close relationship with service provider takes neither greater responsibility for the good outcome (better than expected) nor lower responsibility for the bad outcome (worse than expect). Further, close participants report making a less positive contribution to the service outcome relative to distant participants.Third, the participative roles adopted by customers in service production and delivery moderate the effects of relationship mechanism on SSB in participation. Specifically, the moderating effect of relationship closeness on SSB is stronger when customer highly participates in the service production and delivery. A customer who has a close relationship with service provider is much more satisfied than is a customer who has a distant relationship with service provider in high customer participation condition relative to low customer participation condition.Fourth, the strong relationship, such as commercial friendships, can be developed between customer and service provider from the customer’s point of view in Chinese context. By qualitative study, the author also identifies 18 important components of such interpersonal relationship, including:identification, liking, understanding, trust, commitment, support providing, self-exposure, etc.Mixed research methods are used in this study, including scenario-based role-playing experiments, focus group, in-depth interviews, content analysis and empirical based survey research with real customers.Based on cross-discipline research, this study has theoretical and managerial implications. It contributes to examine and broaden current theories pertaining to customer participation by investigating the psychological responses and the factors or mechanism that has the potential to influence the psychological responses in customer participation. The finding regarding the impact of customer-service provider relationship on psychological response of customer deepen the understanding of customer-service provider relationship and broaden current research on service relationship in domain of service marketing. The result also offers suggestions and insights to companies to manage customer participation and relationships between customer and their employees effectively.Finally, the author discusses the limitation and direction for further research.
【Key words】 Customer Participation; Customer-Service Provider Relationship; Self-Serving Bias(SSB); Customer Satisfaction;