Employees' service recovery efforts as a function of perceptions of interactional justice in individualistic vs. collectivistic cultures

Abstract

The present investigation studies service employees’ service recovery efforts across Eastern (highly collectivistic) and Western (highly individualistic) societies. We explore the moderating effect of individualism vs. collectivism cultural orientation on the relationship between employees’ and managers’ perceptions of interactional justice and their evaluations of service recovery efforts. We hypothesised that employees’ perceptions of interactional justice will positively correlate with employees’ service recovery efforts and this relation will be stronger in collectivistic cultures than in individualistic cultures. We also hypothesised that managers’ interactional justice will positively relate to their perceptions of employees’ service recovery efforts and that this relation will be stronger in individualistic cultures. Surveys were collected from 32,234 staff and mangers, across 34 countries working in 130 organisations. Using cross-level analysis we found that the relationship between managers’ perceptions of interactional justice and perceptions of service recovery significantly varies across the 34 nations. Research hypotheses were fully supported.