B2B Buyers' emotions and regulatory focus in justice and switch back decisions

Abstract

Research on the role of emotions in organizational decision making is escalating, yet the impact of emotions on organizational buying remains under-examined. Applying the feelings-as-information perspective, we examine the influence of purchasing agents' termination emotions (i.e., emotions associated with the termination of a supplier) on their perception of justice toward an existing win back offer, and their advocacy toward switching-back to this supplier. Additionally, we integrate regulatory focus theory to examine the boundary conditioning effect of a buyer's prevention focus. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research from purchasing agents, this study provides insight into the positive effect of “felt-bad” termination emotions (i.e., guilt, embarrassment, regret, and sadness) and the negative effect of “felt-good” termination emotions (i.e., joy, hopefulness, and relief) on cognition (i.e., perception of justice in the win back offerings) and subsequent advocacy to switch-back. Additionally, buyer perceptions of justice in a win back offer are found to mediate the relationship between emotions and actions (i.e., advocacy to switch-back). Furthermore, a prevention focus orientation diminishes the influence of buyers' termination emotions on the perception of justice in the win back offer. Our results explicate purchasing agents' emotion-cognition-decision relationships in organizational purchasing.