Although the average consumer engages in referring others on a daily basis (Keller 2007), stimulated by companies that even sometimes reward consumers for doing so (Ryu and Feick 2007; Schmitt, Skiera, and Van den Bulte 2011), we are not aware of any prior research that addressed the effect of referral failure on the person who engaged in the referral. However, as the outcome of the referral becomes more and more transparent in the emerging online environment, this is an issue of growing importance. Literature indicates that consumption itself can often be considered a non-verbal form of identity-expression (Belk, Bahn, and Mayer 1982; Reed 2004), and that engaging in referral makes consumption even more publicly visible (Brown, Barry, Dacin, and Gunst 2005; Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, and Gremler 2004). Therefore, we propose that referral failure - the situation in which one's advice is rejected - may in some circumstances threaten consumers' identities. Literature provides ample evidence that identity threats motivate consumers to bolster their self-concept (Dunning, Perie, and Story 1991; Wentura and Greve 2005). When consumers' identity is threatened, they choose products that support their self-concept (Gao, Wheeler, and Shiv 2009) and become more motivated to firmly advocate their threatened self-beliefs (Gal and Rucker 2010).
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