Culture's impact on consumer complaining responses to embarrassing service failure

Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 298–305

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Journal of Business Research

Culture's impact on consumer complaining responses to embarrassing service failure☆ Lisa C. Wan ⁎ BU 204, Department of Marketing and International Business, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 1 March 2010 Received in revised form 1 July 2011 Accepted 1 August 2011 Available online 13 September 2011 Keywords: Service failures Culture Face concern Service embarrassment

a b s t r a c t Prior cultural research generally agrees that Asian consumers (collectivists), who emphasize social harmony, are less likely to complain but more likely to switch and to spread negative word-of-mouth than Western consumers (individualists) in service failures. Drawing from the face concern and embarrassment literature, this paper argues that collectivists are not necessarily less likely to complain than individualists. In fact, the impact of culture on consumer complaining responses will be contingent on the degree of embarrassment involved in the service failure. Results from a cross-cultural experiment indicate that only in a non-embarrassing failure will collectivists less likely complain than individualists. In an embarrassing failure, however, collectivists will more likely complain, as well as switch and spread negative word-of-mouth. These results not only yield interesting insights into cross-cultural consumer behaviors, but also provide rich managerial implications. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction With the rapid growth of the service sector in the global economy, cross-cultural issues of consumer behavior in service encounters have attracted considerable research attention in recent years (e.g., Chan & Wan, 2008; Chan, Wan, & Sin, 2009; Mattila & Patterson, 2004; Wong, 2004; Zhang, Beatty, & Walsh, 2008). One of the most prominent differences between Asian (i.e., collectivists) and Western consumers (i.e., individualists) is service complaining responses. Researchers generally believe that Asian consumers will less likely complain but more likely switch and spread negative word-of-mouth than Western consumers in service failures (Chan & Wan, 2008; Liu & McClure, 2001; Lowe & Corkindale, 1998). Researchers base this belief on the argument that Asians' general belief in social harmony prompts them to refrain from confrontational responses (e.g., to voice out discontent publicly in service failures); therefore, they will more likely choose non-confrontational responses to express their discontent (e.g., switching and negative word-of-mouth). In cross-cultural service failure literature, social harmony is a well-established explanation for the different tendencies to complain among collectivists and individualists. Such explanation, however, is inadequate when other cultural values and service failures are under examination. For instance, in social psychology and communication

☆ The author gratefully acknowledges the constructive comments offered by the editor, co-editors, and anonymous reviewers. The author is also grateful for the funding support (DR 11A8) provided by Lingnan University. ⁎ Tel.: + 852 2616 8236; fax: + 852 2467 3049. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0148-2963/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.08.009

literature, many researchers find that face concern plays a significant role in conflict management (e.g., Cocroft & Ting-Toomey, 1994; Oetzel et al., 2001). Face, which means the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself (Goffman, 1967), explains the basic human need for social acceptance across individualistic and collectivistic cultures (Hwang, Francesco, & Kessler, 2003). Surprisingly, scant research has investigated this concept in marketing. As an exception, Chan and Wan (2009) find that face concern influences consumer dissatisfaction responses, such as complaint intention. Since collectivists are more sensitive to face issues than individualists (Hui & Triandis, 1986), collectivists will take more serious offense in service failures if the incident is face-threatening. Consequently, collectivists will choose more confrontational response than individualists. This paper aims to provide new insights regarding the impact of culture on consumer reactions to service failures. The following propositions, which have been neglected in the past, reveal new insights: 1) embarrassment is a face-threatening element that can arise from service failures; and 2) there are non-embarrassing and embarrassing service failures. Building on the face concern and facework literature (Cocroft & Ting-Toomey, 1994; Ting-Toomey & Kurogi, 1998), collectivists and individualists may react differently to service failure with and without embarrassment. On one hand, collectivists should less likely complain than individualists in non-embarrassing failures. On the other hand, collectivists should more likely complain than individualists in embarrassing failures. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The next section lays out the conceptual foundation of the proposed model, which, in turn, is stated formally via several research hypotheses pertaining to

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consumer reactions to different service failures across cultures. The paper then presents empirical results of an experiment and discusses theoretical and managerial implications of the proposed model.

characteristic as social harmony in collective cultures. Consequently, the current study examines the role of face concern in interpersonal conflicts, especially in its potential impact on complaint behaviors.

2. Culture and complaining behaviors

3. Face concern and complaint intention

Researchers recognize culture as an important variable that profoundly influences consumer perceptions of service quality and reactions to service failures (Chan & Wan, 2008; Zhang et al., 2008). Culture can be broadly defined as a set of collective programming, whose system of values and norms guides people's beliefs and behaviors (Hofstede, 1980). One of the most widely studied constructs for comparing culture is individualism versus collectivism (Hofstede, 1991; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Singelis, 1994). According to Markus and Kitayama (1991), the key difference between people in individualistic and collectivistic cultures is the extent to which one views oneself as an individuated entity (individualist) or in relation to others (collectivist). Individualists define themselves apart from others and tend to view themselves as independent entities. In contrast, collectivists define themselves in relation to others and tend to view themselves as members of a group. As a result of the divergent self-concepts, individualists focus on personal goals, personal welfare and personal freedom, and exhibit behaviors that reflect individual needs and preferences. Collectivists emphasize social relationships, social harmony, social norms, and collective interests (Singelis, 1994). In general, individualism is a characteristic shared among Western societies and collectivism is more prominent in Asian societies. Prior cross-cultural literature has shown that consumer complaining behaviors differ significantly across individualists and collectivists (Chan & Wan, 2008; Liu & McClure, 2001; Lowe & Corkindale, 1998). Hirschman's (1970) seminal work provides the conceptual foundation for much of the research on consumer complaining behaviors. Hirschman identifies three broad categories of responses to dissatisfaction: (1) exit (avoiding the dissatisfying firm), (2) loyalty (not avoiding the dissatisfying firm or simply the opposite of exit), and (3) voice (complaining and giving negative word of mouth). Elaborating the voice aspect of Hirschman's model, Singh (1988) further proposes a three-dimensional taxonomy of complaining behaviors: (1) voice responses, (2) private responses, and (3) third-party responses. According to Singh (1988), voice responses are complaining behaviors directed at parties perceived as responsible for a dissatisfying experience. Private responses and third-party responses are complaining behaviors directed at parties not involved in the dissatisfying experience. The following are examples for each type of complaining behavior: lodging a complaint to the manager/firm is a voice response; spreading an unhappy experience to family and friends through negative word-of-mouth is a private response; and taking legal action and complaining to outside sanctioning bodies (e.g., consumer agency) are a third-party response. Compared with private and third-party responses, voice is a direct, confrontational approach to relieving consumer dissatisfaction. Previous cross-cultural research on voice responses suggests that collectivists are less likely than individualists to complain directly to the manager/firm in service failures (Chan & Wan, 2008; Liu & McClure, 2001; Lowe & Corkindale, 1998). The desire to maintain social harmony (i.e., to avoid direct confrontations) among collectivists curbs their intention to complain. On the other hand, emphasis on independence and self-expression among individualists encourages expressing discontent by complaining (Hofstede, 1991; Hui & Triandis, 1986). Although collectivists are less likely than individualists to voice discontent directly to the manager/firm, they will more likely use other complaining responses, such as switching or negative word-of-mouth, to express their dissatisfaction in service failures. The majority of prior research has applied social harmony when explaining why collectivists complain less than individualists. Interestingly, marketing literature rarely considers the face issue, which is as

3.1. The concept of face The concept of face is widely discussed in social psychology, sociology, and communication research (e.g., Brown & Levinson, 1987; Goffman, 1967; Ho, 1976; Ting-Toomey & Kurogi, 1998). These lines of literature find that face has pervasive impact on a variety of social interactions, such as compliance seeking, negotiation, organizational behaviors, and conflict management (e.g., Oetzel et al., 2001; White, Tynan, Galinsky, & Thompson, 2004; Wilson, Aleman, & Leatham, 1998). However, marketing's understanding of the role of face in social interactions is minimal. Recently, some marketing researchers begin to examine the impact of face on different consumer behaviors, such as consumer decision making (Bao, Zhou, & Su, 2003), conspicuous consumption (Li & Su, 2007; Wong & Ahuvia, 1998) and consumer reactions to service failures (Chan et al., 2009). The concept of face is not new. In Chinese culture, there are two conceptualizations of face: “mien-tzu (or mianzi)” and “lien (or lian)” (Hu, 1944). Mien-tzu refers to the prestige or reputation achieved through personal effort and success in life. Lien refers to the moral character of a person. Since mien-tzu represents social approval grounded upon a person's performances in social interactions, mien-tzu corresponds to the western concept of face (Bond, 1996). According to Goffman (1967, p.5), face is “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself.” Face is a “public property” that depends on others for its existence. Individuals are emotionally invested in maintaining and enhancing face in social settings. Inspired by Goffman's work, Chan et al. (2009) further interpret face as a positive image of self that is affirmed through interaction with others and that cannot be claimed unilaterally. Face can be viewed as the public, social, and fluid aspects of the self-concept that are contingent on others' attitudes and behaviors. Face can be enhanced, saved, and lost through social interactions. Although face underlies the basic human need for social acceptance, some people may put greater emphasis on face than others. In view of this, Chan et al. (2009) define face concern as the extent to which an individual shows regard for and interest in the protection and enhancement of his/her positive social image in social interactions. 3.2. Face concern across cultures While the concept of face is universal, prior research shows that collectivists are more sensitive to and concerned about facet than individualists (Bao et al., 2003; Chan et al., 2009; Hui & Triandis, 1986; Oetzel et al., 2001). As Hui and Triandis (1986), one consequence of collectivists' emphasis on social relationships is their heightened need to gain approval and maintain face with social others. To collectivists, face is a primary concern in social interactions (Oetzel et al., 2001). When collectivists lose face, their self-esteem is injured, resulting in emotional uneasiness (Hwang, 1987). Comparatively, individualists are not as concerned about the loss of face. For individualists, “[to be] accepted by a certain group of people is not a major purpose of life” (Hui & Triandis, 1986, p. 231). Consistent with this argument, Chan et al. (2009) find that when impolite service providers make consumers lose face, Asian consumers become more dissatisfied with the service than Western consumers. When an individual's face is threatened, s/he will use facework to maintain, protect, or restore face. Facework refers to communicative strategies that are used to enact self-face and to uphold, challenge, threaten, or support another's face (Ting-Toomey, 2005). Interestingly, individualists and collectivists use different facework styles to cope with

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social conflicts (Oetzel et al., 2001; Ting-Toomey & Kurogi, 1998). According to Ting-Toomey and Kurogi (1998), there are two focuses of face concern in social interactions: a self-face concern and an other-face concern. A self-face concern is the tendency to focus on maintaining one's own image in a social situation, whereas an other-face concern is the tendency to focus on maintaining others' image in a social situation. These two focuses of face concern differentially influence individuals' facework styles across cultures. Individualists emphasize the “I” identity and value uniqueness, personal attributes and personal achievement. In social interactions, individualists focus on their own thoughts and feelings rather than those of others. Consequently, individualists will choose facework styles that focus on maintaining one's own face (i.e., self-face concern) but not on others' face (i.e., other-face concern). Individualists will more likely use dominating facework to cope with social conflicts (Oetzel et al., 2001). Dominating facework aims to present a credible image and win the argument. For example, to voice one's viewpoint in public to defend oneself is a dominating facework. In the context of service failures, complaining directly to a service provider/manager is a form of dominating facework. In contrast, collectivists focus on the “we” identity and value relational connectedness and group benefits. When interacting with others, collectivists are not only sensitive to their own needs, but also to others' thoughts and feelings. In case of social conflicts, collectivists are prone to deploy facework styles that maintain both self-face and other-face. Therefore, collectivists tend to use avoiding or integrating facework styles to cope with conflicts (Oetzel et al., 2001). Avoiding facework stresses the preservation of relational concerns by addressing the conflict indirectly. Examples of avoiding facework include involving a third party (e.g., to talk with others about the problem), avoiding (e.g., to leave the scene), and pretending (e.g., to ignore the conflict and behave as if nothing happened). Integrating facework considers both the preservation of relational concerns and the resolution of the conflict. Examples of integrating facework include compromising with the other person and engaging in private discussions (e.g., not to discuss the problem in public). In the context of service failures, the actions of switching to other firms and spreading negative word of mouth (i.e., to tell family and friends about the service failure) are consistent with the avoiding facework. In this regard, the face concern literature agrees with previous cross-cultural research: collectivists are less likely to complain than individualists, but are more likely to resort to switching or negative word of mouth to vent their discontent in service failures. Although individualists tend to focus more on self-face than other-face in social conflicts, they are not necessarily more sensitive to self-face than collectivists. When considering the cross-cultural difference between individualists and collectivists about sensitivity to face concern, collectivists, in general, are more concerned with face (both self-face and other-face) than individualists. 3.3. The impact of face concern on complaint intention across cultures In the service failure literature, a handful of researchers link the concept of face concern to consumer complaint intention (Chan & Wan, 2009; Chiu, Tsang, & Yang, 1988). Chiu et al.'s (1988) study finds that Chinese consumers will less likely complain in service failures when the situation involves a direct confrontation with people than no confrontation because the high face concern in Chinese culture leads to the avoidance of confrontation. More recently, Chan and Wan (2009) suggest two rival hypotheses about the impact of face concern on consumer complaint intention. On one hand, consumers with high face concern (vs. low face concern) refrain from complaint in service failures because they are more sensitive to other people's face as well as their own. In this case, they will not complain to preserve another's face. On the other hand, because service failures are face-threatening, consumers with high face concern (vs. low face concern) depend on the firm's apologetic gestures to restore their own face. In this situation, high-face

concern consumers will more likely complain to preserve self-face. To test these rival hypotheses, Chan and Wan (2009) conduct an experiment in Hong Kong and find support the former hypothesis — face concern mitigates consumer complaint intention. Notably, both Chiu et al.'s (1988) and Chan and Wan's (2009) studies involve only Chinese participants (i.e., a collectivistic culture). The studies include no cross-cultural comparisons. Questions as to how face concern influences complaint intention across cultures remain unanswered. Although past researchers generally believe that face concern curbs consumer complaint intention, the reverse pattern may occur if certain aspects of service failure are considered. Consider Chan and Wan's (2009) rival hypotheses: (1) when other-face concern is heightened in consumers' minds in service failures, face concern will mitigate complaint intention, and (2) when self-face concern is heightened, face concern will accentuate complaint intention. As mentioned before, collectivists are concerned with both self-face and other-face, whereas individualists are concerned with self-face only. If a service failure heightens other-face concern, collectivists will less likely complain than individualists because they are more sensitive to other-face. If a service failure heightens self-face concern, however, collectivists will likely complain more than individualists. Given that face concern is of utmost importance to collectivists but not to individualists (Hui & Triandis, 1986), collectivists will be more motivated to restore their own face by lodging a complaint. In other words, whether collectivists will complain more or less than individualists depends on the relative salience of either a self-face or an other-face concern. Conceivably, when a service failure involves a significant loss of self-face, self-face concern predominates, which in turn guides collectivists' complaint intentions. When a service failure does not involve a significant loss of self-face, other-face concern exerts a stronger influence on collectivists' complaint intentions. In short, face concern will have contrasting impacts on consumer complaint intention across individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Existing literature, however, does not distinguish between situations when face concern mitigates or accentuates collectivists' complaint intention. To fill this literature gap, this paper identifies a situational variable – embarrassment situation – that may reconcile the contrasting predictions. 3.4. Service failures and the embarrassment situation Embarrassment is a discomforting experience that may occur in a variety of consumption situations (Dahl, Manchanda, & Argo, 2001; Grace, 2007). For example, embarrassment may occur during product purchase (e.g., adult video, condom, laxative, etc.), service consumption (e.g., speed dating, body check, weight loss services, etc.), or product/service usage (e.g., credit card is denied, dress inappropriately in a fancy restaurant, etc.). Embarrassment is woven into the fabric of human interactions (Goffman, 1967; Keltner & Buswell, 1997). Goffman (1967) defines embarrassment as an emotion that occurs in social interactions when unwanted events intervene and result in a loss of composure and the inability to participate in future interactions. Embarrassing situations are events or actions that create unwanted evaluations from real or imagined audiences and involve a threat to an individual's desired social identity (Dahl et al., 2001; Keltner & Buswell, 1997). Driven by a concern for how others evaluate one's behaviors, embarrassment is particularly salient in the presence of social others. As noted by Verbeke and Bagozzi (2003), embarrassment differs from other emotions (e.g., shame) as incidents provoking embarrassment occur largely in public but not in private (i.e., one rarely feels embarrassed alone). In consumption situations, consumers generally experience a higher level of embarrassment in the presence than in the absence of other customers (Dahl et al., 2001). Human elements are central to services (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1985) and service encounters are characterized by the presence of other customers (e.g., family and friends or unknown customers) in the

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same consumption situation (Langeard, Bateson, Lovelock, & Eiglier, 1981; Wan, Chan, & Su, 2011). When a service failure happens, a consumer's desire for service is either ignored or not properly delivered by the service provider. Service failure poses a threat to the consumer's desired social identity and creates a certain degree of embarrassment, especially when other consumers witness the service failure. For example, if a waiter accidentally spills soup on a customer, the customer's embarrassment will be stronger if other customers are present than when they are absent. Note that when a service failure happens, the failure can be attributed to external factors (e.g., bad weather, peak hours etc.) or internal factors (e.g., the service provider's motivation and ability). Although findings show that consumers are less dissatisfied if they attribute a service failure to external, rather than internal factors (Weiner, 2000), attributions may not have a significant influence on the embarrassment level that a consumer experiences in service failures. Consider again the example in which a waiter accidentally spills soup on a customer. If this incident happens in public, the customer may experience a high level of embarrassment even if s/he attributes the cause to external factors, such as the waiter serving many tables during busy hours. Therefore, one important factor that creates a high level of embarrassment in service failures is the presence of other consumers. Service failures can be classified broadly into two types: embarrassing failures and non-embarrassing failures. An embarrassing failure happens when a consumer perceives that the core service is not delivered properly in a consumption context and that other consumers form undesirable evaluations, threatening the embarrassed consumer's desired social identity. In a non-embarrassing service failure, the consumer does not perceive that the failure results in undesirable evaluations from other consumers, so the consumer's desired social identity is not threatened. For example, if a customer picks a restaurant and finds that the food and services are poor, the failure would be embarrassing if the customer has a company (e.g., celebrating a friend's birthday). The service failure would not be embarrassing if the customer dines alone. More importantly, an embarrassing failure creates a threat to a consumer's desired social identity which leads to a loss of face because the consumer cannot affirm his or her positive self-image. Therefore, another distinction between the two types of service failures is that an embarrassing failure involves a significant loss of face, while a non-embarrassing failure does not. This distinction provides a critical insight into the impact of face concern on complaint intentions across individualistic and collectivistic cultures.

4. Hypotheses To reiterate, whether collectivists complain more or less than individualists in service failures depends on the relative salience of self-face concern versus other-face concern in collectivists' minds. Given the distinct characteristics of embarrassing and non-embarrassing failures, collectivists should complain more than individualists in embarrassing failures but less than individualists in non-embarrassing failures. As mentioned before, collectivists are generally more concerned with face than individualists (e.g., Hui & Triandis, 1986; Oetzel et al., 2001). When involving significant loss of face, a service failure will heighten collectivists' self-face concern and intention to complain because complaining helps consumers restore their own face through the service provider's/firm's apologetic gestures (Chan & Wan, 2009). In contrast, a non-embarrassing failure does not involve a significant loss of face and would not heighten collectivists' self-face concern. Other-face concern, however, would be more salient in governing collectivists' behaviors in this situation. Thus, collectivists may less likely complain than individualists in a non-embarrassing failure because they are more willing to preserve others' face and avoid direct confrontation in conflicts (Chan & Wan, 2008; Liu & McClure, 2001).

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H1. When a service failure involves embarrassment, collectivists will have a higher intention to complain than individualists. H2. When a service failure does not involve embarrassment, collectivists will have a lower intention to complain than individualists. In addition to complaint intention, switching to other service providers/firms and spreading negative word-of-mouth are common complaining responses to service failures. While complaining is a public action involving direct confrontations with others, switching and spreading negative word-of-mouth are private in nature (Singh, 1988). As mentioned before, previous face concern literature shows that individualists tend to choose facework styles that maintain self-face and are more likely to use dominating facework to cope with social conflicts. Collectivists, on the contrary, tend to use facework styles that maintain both self-face and other-face, such as avoiding facework styles (Oetzel et al., 2001; Ting-Toomey & Kurogi, 1998). In the context of service failures, complaining directly to a service provider/manager is a dominating facework, whereas switching and negative word-of-mouth are avoiding facework. Following this logic, switching and negative word-of-mouth can maintain both self-face and other-face. Recall that a non-embarrassing failure does not involve a significant loss of self-face, and other-face (vs. self-face) concern may be more salient in governing collectivists' behaviors in this situation. Hence, in non-embarrassing service failures, collectivists will more likely choose both switching and negative word-of-mouth to relieve their discontent than individualists. H3. When a non-embarrassing failure happens, collectivists will have a higher intention to switch than individualists. H4. When a non-embarrassing failure happens, collectivists will have a higher intention to spread negative word-of-mouth than individualists. Switching and negative word-of-mouth also enable consumers to maintain or restore their own face in social conflicts. Arguably, switching to other service options in service failures enables a consumer to maintain or protect his/her own face by avoiding any potential face-threatening event with the same service provider. Likewise, spreading negative word-of-mouth to a third party enables a consumer to demonstrate his/her exquisite taste through expressing dissatisfaction with a substandard service (i.e., a face-enhancement function) (Chan & Wan, 2008). Since an embarrassing failure involves a significant loss of self-face, it will heighten collectivists' self-face concern and motivate them to engage in a variety of facework remedies to maintain their own face. Comparatively, individualists are not as concerned about the loss of face (Hui & Triandis, 1986). It follows that in addition to complaint, collectivists may also use switching and negative word-ofmouth to restore their face loss in embarrassing failures. Therefore, collectivists (vs. individualists) may be more motivated to switch and spread negative word-of-mouth in this situation. H5. When an embarrassing failure happens, collectivists will have a higher switching intention than individualists. H6. When an embarrassing failure happens, collectivists will have a higher intention to spread negative word-of-mouth than individualists. 5. Experiment 5.1. Participants and design To test the hypotheses, an experiment was conducted utilizing 118 undergraduate students, with 60 Chinese students (46% male, average age = 20) from a university in Hong Kong and 58 American students (52% male; average age = 21) from a university in the United States. Each participant received a small gift for participating in a consumer study. The experiment used a 2 (cultural group: collectivists vs.

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individualists) × 2 (failure type: non-embarrassing vs. embarrassing) between-subjects experimental design. Since this research was at the theory-building stage, internal validity was relatively more important than external validity. In this regard, a scenario-based methodology was used to maximize internal validity. To achieve cross-cultural comparability, sampling equivalence was also important. Therefore, university students from two different cultures (individualistic cultures vs. collectivistic cultures) were invited to participate in the experiment. Employing students as participants is a common practice in experimental studies. Given that students possess homogeneous backgrounds, many extraneous variables such as age, education, and income level can be controlled. Hence, using student participants helps remove the bias that may arise in non-student samples and achieve internal validity. 5.2. Procedure Restaurant scenarios were used to manipulate the degree of embarrassment in service failures. In the scenarios, participants were asked to imagine that they reserved a sea-view table at a nice restaurant and the booking was confirmed. The next day when they arrived at the restaurant, however, the waiter told them that sea-view tables were provided on a first-come-first-serve basis and no sea-view tables were available. In other words, they could not enjoy a sea-view table as they had expected. In the non-embarrassing failure condition, participants were told that they planned to dine alone, whereas in the embarrassing failure condition, they were told that they invited their friends to dinner and their friends witnessed the incident (see Appendix A for the restaurant scenarios). A pretest (n= 46; average age = 22) was conducted in Hong Kong to check the effectiveness of the manipulation. Half of the participants were assigned to the non-embarrassing failure condition and the other half were assigned to the embarrassing failure condition. The two scenarios were expected to create a significant difference in feelings of embarrassment (e.g., “You feel very embarrassed about the incident,” 1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree). As predicted, participants in the embarrassing failure condition perceived a higher level of embarrassment than those in the non-embarrassing failure condition (5.83 vs. 3.22; F(1, 44) = 293.82; p b .001). Hence, the manipulation of the two failure types was successful. In the main study, American and Chinese participants were randomly assigned to either a non-embarrassing or an embarrassing failure condition. The scenarios used in the two conditions were identical to the pretest. After reading the scenarios, participants completed the dependent variable measures, including intention to complain, switch, and spread negative word-of-mouth. All these measures were adapted from Singh (1988) for testing H1–H6. Participants indicated their responses to these measures on 7-point scales anchored at “very unlikely/very likely,” “definitely will not/definitely will,” and “inclined not to/inclined to.” Next, participants completed a 6-item face concern scale (e.g., “I care about others' attitudes toward me.”) adopted from Chan et al. (2009), and their responses were measured with a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 10 = strongly agree). See Appendix B for the aforementioned items along with the reliability statistics. Next, participants responded to measures that assessed the effectiveness of the failure type manipulation. These manipulation check items were identical to the pretest. In addition, an independent-interdependent scale (Singelis, 1994) was administered to check the validity of the American and Chinese samples as proxies of individualism versus collectivism (e.g., individualism item: “I enjoy being unique and different from others in many respects” and collectivism item: “It is important for me to maintain harmony within my group”). Since dissatisfaction is a key variable that influences consumer complaining responses, the study also included a measure of consumer dissatisfaction as a covariate (e.g., “Overall, I am not satisfied with the restaurant”).

Finally, participants rated the realism of the scenarios (e.g., “The situation described above is realistic”), provided demographic information, and commented on the purpose of the study. The majority found the scenarios realistic and none guessed the real purpose of the study. Participants were thanked and debriefed. 6. Results 6.1. Manipulation checks A 2 (cultural group: collectivists vs. individualists) × 2 (failure type: non-embarrassing vs. embarrassing) ANOVA was performed to assess the effectiveness of the failure type manipulation. As intended, the result showed a main effect of failure type, where participants in the embarrassing failure condition felt a higher level of embarrassment than those in the non-embarrassing failure condition (5.71 vs. 3.06; F(1, 114) = 657.52; p b .001). No effects involving cultural group were found (p's N .10). The manipulation of the two failure types was successful. 6.2. Classification checks The independent-interdependent scale confirmed that the American and Chinese groups were higher in individualism and collectivism, respectively (ps b .001). Specifically, American participants had higher individualism ratings than Chinese participants (α = .74; 5.66 vs. 4.64), and they had lower collectivism ratings than the latter (α = .67; 4.72 vs. 5.36). 6.3. Complaint intentions A 2 × 2 ANCOVA was used to assess the interactive effects of cultural group and failure type on complaint intention, and dissatisfaction was included as a covariate. There was a main effect of failure type, with participants reporting a higher complaint intention in the embarrassing failure condition than in the non-embarrassing failure condition (5.46 vs. 4.73; F(1, 113) = 20.31, p b .001). Consistent with H1 and H2, there was a significant interaction between cultural group and failure type (F(1, 113) = 21.19, p b .001). A planned contrast indicated that Chinese participants are less likely to complain than American participants in the non-embarrassing failure condition (4.03 vs. 5.19; F(1, 57) = 26.06, p b .001). A second planned contrast showed the reverse pattern for the embarrassing failure condition: Chinese participants are more likely to complain than American participants (5.93 vs. 5.22; F(1, 57) = 15.63, p b .001). Therefore, H1 and H2 were both supported. The mean patterns for complaint intention are shown in Fig. 1. 6.4. Switching intention A 2 × 2 ANCOVA was used to assess the interactive effects of cultural group and failure type on switching intention. Dissatisfaction was included as a covariate. There was a significant main effect of cultural group on switching intention (F(1, 113) = 51.36, p b .001) but no other effects were significant. Planned contrast analyses indicated that Chinese participants are more likely to switch than American participants in both non-embarrassing (4.91 vs. 4.31; F(1, 57) = 16.10, p b .001) and embarrassing failure (5.19 vs. 4.28; F(1, 57) = 38.89, p b .001) conditions. Hence, results supported H3 and H5. 6.5. Negative word-of-mouth intention Again, a 2 × 2 ANCOVA was used to assess the interactive effects of cultural group and failure type on negative word-of-mouth intention, and dissatisfaction was again included as a covariate. Results showed a significant main effect of cultural group on negative word-of-mouth only (F(1, 113) = 63.74, p b .001) and no other effects were significant. Planned contrast analyses indicated that Chinese participants are

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7.2. Theoretical implications

Complaint Intention

6.5

5.93

6 5.5 5

5.19

5.22

4.5 4

4.03

3.5 3 Non-embarassing failure

Embarrassing failure Collectivisits Individualists

Fig. 1. The impacts of culture on consumer complaint intention across non-embarrassing and embarrassing failures.

more likely to spread negative word-of-mouth than American participants in both non-embarrassing (5.20 vs. 4.24; F(1, 57) = 35.83, p b .001) and embarrassing failure conditions (5.07 vs. 4.34; F(1, 57) = 31.35, p b .001). Thus, results supported H4 and H6.

6.6. Mediation analyses Given that there was an interactive effect of cultural group and failure type on complaint intention (H1 and H2), a mediated moderation analysis was performed to examine the mediating role of face concern on the interactive effect (Baron & Kenny, 1986). Arguably, the interactive effect of cultural group and failure type on complaint intention was driven by individual differences in face concern across the two cultures. This argument suggests that the cultural group× failure type interaction was mediated by the face concern× failure type interaction. To verify this prediction, first, complaint intention was regressed on the main and interactive effects of cultural group and failure type, and there was a significant cultural group × failure type interaction (p b .001). Second, the main effect of face concern was added to the model and it did not mediate the cultural group × failure type interaction (p N .10). Finally, when the face concern× failure type interaction was added to the main model, the original cultural group× failure type interaction effect became non-significant (p N .10). The test indicates a full mediation (Sobel test = 3.09; p b .001), confirming the mediated moderation relationship.

7. Discussion 7.1. Summary The current research substantiates the contention that collectivists may not necessarily be less likely to complain than individualists in service failures. Building on the face concern and embarrassment literature (e.g., Dahl et al., 2001; Ting-Toomey & Kurogi, 1998), this research shows that the impacts of culture on consumer complaining responses depend on the degree of embarrassment in service failures. Results demonstrate that while collectivists (vs. individualists) less likely complain in non-embarrassing failures, they more likely complain in embarrassing failures. In addition, collectivists (vs. individualists) more likely switch and spread negative word-of-mouth in both non-embarrassing and embarrassing failures. Importantly, face concern mediates the cultural impacts on consumer complaint intention across non-embarrassing and embarrassing failures.

This paper offers several important contributions, including new insights regarding the cultural impacts on consumer responses to service failures. While substantial research has identified the role of social harmony in explaining cultural differences on consumer complaining responses, the current study advocates that face concern also plays a significant role in explaining the cross-cultural differences. Face concern has been recognized as a cultural value that has pervasive impacts on a variety of social behaviors, such as interpersonal conflict management (e.g., Cocroft & Ting-Toomey, 1994). Nevertheless, very little research has applied this concept in investigating consumer behaviors across cultures. Building on the face concern and facework literature (e.g., Hui & Triandis, 1986; Oetzel et al., 2001), this research fills a void in the literature by relating the concept of face concern to consumer complaining responses across cultures. Admittedly, the current research is not the first to consider the role of face concern in consumer complaining responses. Chan and Wan (2009) found that face concern will influence consumer complaint and negative word-of-mouth intention. The current research is, however, the first empirical test of the role of face concern in consumer complaining responses across cultures. Chan and Wan (2009) suggest that face concern may have contrasting impacts on complaint intention, that is, it may either mitigate or magnify complaint intention in service failures. They did not submit this proposition to empirical testing with a crosscultural sample. In this regard, the current study extends their works to a cross-cultural context and substantiates that collectivists' preferences on complaint intention indeed depend on the relative salience of self-face concern versus other-face concern in service failures. The current research contributes to the literature by identifying service embarrassment as a moderator of the relationship between cultural impacts and consumer complaining responses. The degree of embarrassment involved in service failures reconciles the contrasting predictions of face concern on complaint intention. One the one hand, face concern mitigates collectivists' complaint intentions in non-embarrassing failures (i.e., a situation that provokes a high other-face concern). On the other hand, face concern magnifies collectivists' complaint intentions in embarrassing failures (i.e., a situation that provokes a high self-face concern). Incidentally, individualists' complaint intentions do not depend on the relative salience of self-face concern versus other-face concern in service failures. This research adds new insights to an under-researched issue specific to services marketing: service embarrassment. Despite the fact that embarrassment is a common phenomenon in consumption, little research has examined its impact on consumer behaviors, especially in the cross-cultural context. Building on the face concern and embarrassment literature (e.g., Cocroft & Ting-Toomey, 1994; Dahl et al., 2001), this research is the first to provide empirical evidence of how consumers react to embarrassing failures across cultures. Previous cross-cultural research suggests that when compared with individualists, collectivists are more understanding and tolerant of service failures (Zhang et al., 2008). The current research shows that collectivists are not necessarily more tolerant of service failures than individualists. Results show that when a service failure does not involve embarrassment, collectivists do react less negatively than individualists. Yet when a service failure involves embarrassment, collectivists react more negatively than individualists reflected in the array of complaining responses used to express discontent of face loss: complaint, switching, and negative word-of-mouth. 7.3. Managerial implications Global managers face challenges when trying to cater to customers from different cultures, especially for services where success depends largely on human factors that are susceptible to cultural influence. This research provides important insights into how consumers' culture leads

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them to react differently in embarrassing and non-embarrassing service failures. The study also suggests several guidelines for minimizing service embarrassment in service encounters. Notably, consumers in general react more negatively and have higher complaint intention in embarrassing service failures than non-embarrassing service failures. Collectivists react even more negatively than individualists in embarrassing service failures. Collectivists will use a variety of complaining responses to restore their loss of face, such as complaint, switching, and negative word-of-mouth. Therefore, global managers should put relatively more effort in avoiding embarrassing service failures in service encounters in Asian countries. Service firms in Asian countries may encourage consumers to use self-services to minimize the social interactions in service encounters, including online services and self-check-in kiosks. Even though selfservices may not totally eliminate human interactions and the presence of other customers (e.g., consumers may still interact with service providers for honoring the online commitment, or interact with other customers when waiting at self-check-in kiosks), self-service has comparatively less public exposure than full-service encounters. Therefore, self-services may be one possible way to reduce the chance that service failures will be witnessed by others. Another example is that during busy hours or seasons, customers may experience longer waits or will be under-served in service encounters. If possible, global managers may keep customers waiting in separate rooms (i.e., try to reduce the number of other customers present in the same service encounter) and offer them free drinks and magazines to occupy their wait time. This technique may shorten consumers' perception of wait time and reduce the chance for a failure to happen. If a service failure happens, fewer customers will observe the failure, which may minimize the degree of embarrassment. In case an embarrassing service failure happens, timely service recovery actions should be offered to restore consumers' face loss. As noted by Smith, Bolton, and Wagner (1999), customers prefer exchanges of resources that are “in kind.” Service recovery efforts that stress apologetic gestures (i.e., a gain in social resource) should be more effective for service failures that primarily involve a social resource loss (e.g., face loss). Given that Asian consumers are more sensitive to face loss than Western consumers, recovery efforts that stress apologetic gestures (e.g., a sincere apology) should be relatively more effective in restoring Asian consumers' face loss in embarrassing failures than recovery efforts that stress economic resources (e.g., compensation). To further enhance the effectiveness of the service recovery, global managers may consider making the service recovery public (e.g., a public apology) by letting other customers in the same service encounter witness it. This action enables Asian consumers to restore, or even earn, face in such incidents, which may result in greater satisfaction than if the service failure had not occurred. It is worth noting that catering to different cultures to account for differences in face concern may be difficult for service industries which have a blend of both Asian and Western consumers, such as the tourism industry. Service providers in such situations do not want to be accused of consumer discrimination. Global service managers must therefore strike a balance when applying the strategy in different situations. 8. Limitations and future research direction The current research does not consider several factors that come into play in service failures. This research focuses only on behavioral responses and embarrassing feelings in service failures. Other emotional responses such as shame, anger, regret, and disappointment should be considered (Smith & Bolton, 2002). Previous literature notes that the feeling of shame differs from embarrassment because incidents provoking embarrassment feelings occur largely in public but not in private situations (Verbeke & Bagozzi, 2003). However, the current research cannot verify whether or not consumers experience feelings of shame in embarrassing failures. When a consumer experiences a shameful feeling in a service failure, will the extent of the shame be

stronger in an embarrassing than in a non-embarrassing failure? Will culture and face concern have influences on consumers' shameful feelings across different types of service failure? Future research that considers different emotional responses will provide better understanding of consumer reactions to service failures across cultures. This research focuses on embarrassing service situations in which service providers cause mistakes during the service delivery process. Consumers may also make mistakes that create embarrassment during the service delivery process. Recall the embarrassing failure scenario where a waiter refuses a customer the sea-view table s/he reserved in front of her/his friend. What if the customer reserves a sea-view table but makes the mistake of going to the restaurant with his/her friend at the wrong time? The customer will be at fault and will likely experience embarrassment. Future research should explore consumer reactions to different types of service embarrassment, such as service provider-induced embarrassment versus customer-induced embarrassment. Another issue for future research is the method of conducting empirical tests. The current research uses a scenario-based experiment to investigate consumer reactions to service failures across cultures. Although this method enables researchers to maximize internal validity in the theory-building stage, the generalizability of research findings to real-life situations may be limited. Therefore, future research should be conducted in more realistic settings to enhance external validity. Appendix A. Service failure scenarios Non-embarrassing failure You are looking for a nice restaurant to have dinner. You search from the internet and find a restaurant with good reviews—Seaside Restaurant. Sea view tables at Seaside Restaurant are limited and are highly recommended by other consumers. Therefore, you make a call to Seaside Restaurant and reserve a sea view table. Your booking is confirmed and you are happy. The next day, you go to the restaurant and ask the waiter to put you at a sea view table (that you reserved yesterday). However, the waiter replies that sea view tables are provided on a first-come-first-serve basis and they cannot be reserved. In other words, you cannot enjoy a relaxing moment by dining at a sea view table. Embarrassing failure You are looking for a nice restaurant to have dinner with your friend. You search from the internet and find a restaurant with good reviews— Seaside Restaurant. Sea view tables at Seaside Restaurant are limited and are highly recommended by other consumers. Therefore, you make a call to Seaside Restaurant and reserve a sea view table. Your booking is confirmed. Your friend is happy with your arrangement. The next day, you go to the restaurant with your friend and ask the waiter to put you two at a sea view table (that you reserved yesterday). However, the waiter replies that sea view tables are provided on a first-come-first-serve basis and they cannot be reserved. In other words, you cannot enjoy a relaxing moment with your friend by dining at a sea view table. Appendix B. Measures for the study A semantic differential scale Complaint intention (α = .88) You will complain to the restaurant's manager about the incident. 1. Very unlikely/Very likely 2. Inclined not to/Inclined to 3. Definitely will not/Definitely will

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Switching intention (α = .78) You will visit the restaurant again in the near future. 1. Very unlikely/Very likely 2. Inclined not to/Inclined to 3. Definitely will not/Definitely will Negative W-O-M (α = .80) You will tell your family and friends about the incident. 1. Very unlikely/Very likely 2. Inclined not to/Inclined to 3. Definitely will not/Definitely will A likert scale Face concern (α = .85) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

I care about praises and criticisms from others. I care about others' attitudes toward me. I hate being taken lightly. I will be very angry if others are impolite to me. I will be very happy if I am treated with respect. I will be very upset if I am criticized in public.

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