How Does Culture Impact Customer Evaluation in Online Complaining? Evidence from Germany and India

摘要

This article investigates how customers' cultural orientation impacts their service evaluations when complaining online on social media. Two separate scenario-based experimental studies were conducted using non-student samples from two culturally diverse countries (Germany and India). Study 1 using 83 participants from Germany and 83 from India shows that when causal explanations for service failure are given, individualists have higher perceived justice. Study 2 with 81 participants from Germany and 82 from India shows that when cognitive control is given through regular updates during service recovery to high uncertainty avoidance seekers, they show higher perceived justice. The three independent justice dimensions positively influence recovery satisfaction, with informational justice showing the strongest impact, followed by procedural and distributive justice. This research thus contributes to the nascent literature in social media complaining. Managers of online service organizations can benefit from these findings when developing their complaint management strategies.