Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Procedural Justice in a Complaint Context

Abstract

The idea of procedural justice as perceived by consumers has not been explored in the consumer behavior literature, although there has been some mention of consumer perceptions of fair treatment. This article describes the development of a scale using procedural justice as its theoretic base to measure consumers' perceptions of fair treatment when they complain. Results indicate that consumers make a distinction between the complaint process and the outcome of their complaint, indicating that procedural justice has further research potential. In addition, the proposed scale possesses the psychometric properties of an acceptable scale. The way a retailer handles complaints from consumers about products, services, or staff affects the quality of the relationship between the consumer and the retailer. Numerous explorations of this topic exist in both academic and practitioner literature (e.g., Bailey 1994; Bearden and Teel 1983; Bennett 1997; Singh 1988). Although relatively few dissatisfied consumers complain (Albrecht 1985; Singh 1990; Singh 1988; Singh and Widing 1990), those who do may actually increase their loyalty to the retailer in situations where their complaints are handled effectively. For example, Whitely (1991) reported that over 80 percent of dissatisfied customers who chose to exercise their voices (Singh 1988) and whose complaints were handled effectively in a timely manner expressed repurchase intentions. Similarly, Walker (1990) found that of the dissatisfied customers who did complain to the seller, about 70 percent repurchased from the business. Of those who felt their complaint was fairly resolved, the repurchase percentage jumped to 95 percent. As an added bonus, those customers created positive word-of-mouth reports by telling an average of five people about their positive experiences. Given the importance of complainers' fair treatment, a scale needs to be developed that will measure consumers' perceptions of the fairness of the complaint experience (Blodgett, Hill, and Tax 1997). Procedural justice has been extensively used in a wide variety of contexts to measure perceived fairness, and it can provide a strong theoretical base for development of a fairness scale in a consumer complaint context. Therefore, one purpose of this study is to develop a measure of consumers' perception of fairness as an aid to researchers who are interested in the connection between procedural justice and a consumer's overall evaluation of the complaint experience. The concept of justice complements existing consumer complaint research but remains to be explored, and development of a scale to measure perceived fairness in a complaint context becomes a step toward a more common use of procedural justice in consumer marketing research. The second purpose of this study is to develop a measurement instrument useful to practitioners for evaluating the customer complaint processes. This study starts with a detailed description of the theoretical concept of procedural justice. Next, it describes the development of the fairness instrument using the procedural justice construct as its basis. Then, the results of psychometric evaluation are reported and discussed. Finally, the study offers implications for the proposed scale to both practitioners and future researchers. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND The Procedural Justice Concept Procedural justice is a concept with deep theoretical roots in the legal, organizational behavior, and political science literatures. In its most basic form, procedural justice is concerned with the perceived fairness of a process that culminates in an event, decision, or action (Shepard, Lewicki, and Minton 1992). In organizational, legal, and political contexts, the perceived fairness of the process has been shown to be distinctly separate from the outcome of the process. In other words, consumers make separate determinations between the fairness of the process and the actual outcome of that process (Singh and Widing 1990). …