How online service recovery reviews influence behavioral intentions in the hospitality context: Regulatory focus and loss aversion perspectives

Abstract

In recent years, the research on online service recovery reviews (OSRRs) has attracted significant attention. However, few studies have focused on prospective consumers’ behavioral intentions after reading OSRRs on social media in terms of asymmetric functions and nonlinear approaches. This study proposes a research model to elucidate the relationships among regulatory focus, OSRRs, corporate reputation, service guarantees, and behavioral intentions. A between-subjects experimental design and restaurant-related scenarios were employed to investigate the proposed hypotheses. The findings suggest that consumers with different types of regulatory focus have different priorities when evaluating OSRRs, which exerts asymmetric effects on satisfaction levels because consumers are more concerned with reducing losses than increasing gains. The results also reveal that although good corporate reputation and service guarantees separately moderate the relationship between regulatory fit/nonfit and behavioral intentions, for consumers with regulatory nonfit, the combined effects of these factors produce a stronger moderating effect on behavioral intentions than that of only presenting it alone.