Index of Paper Presentations for the Parallel Sessions - Academy of ...

difference between high and average reputation company. However, customers on high severe failure were found toengage in rational thinking more for average reputation (M average reputation = 4.05, S.D = 1.39) than in high reputationcondition (M high reputation = 3.56, S.D = 1.08) but this difference was found to be significant only at 10% level, t = 1.85,p=.06, supporting H 2d .The proposed interaction effect of severity and brand reputation on emotional venting was partially supported.Although customers had a significant interaction effect on emotional venting, in high severe failure condition therewas no significant difference observed between high and average reputation failing to support H 2e . Rather, customerswere prone to emotional venting when the problem severity was low, where they preferred venting out theiremotions more when the service failure was experienced with highly reputed company (M high reputation_low severe = 4.20,S.D = 1.02) than with a company with average reputation (M average reputation = 3.52, S.D = 1.12), t = -3.15, p < .05.Interaction effects of severity and brand reputation on seeking social support for emotional reasons, avoidance,denial was found to be insignificant.[Insert Table III here]Additional resultsComparison of all cell means indicated that action-based coping had the highest average value when the severity ofthe failure was high. This observation provides sufficient support to show that to cope with high severe problems,customer adopt strategies which are directed towards solving the problem. The results showed that the average ofaction coping strategy ranged from M= 5.25 in high reputation condition to M = 5.7 in average reputation. Thus, thisstrategy was used more prominently over rational thinking, positive thinking and emotional venting indicating thatcustomers are more likely to find ways to solve the problem when the severity of the problem was high. On thecontrary, strategies customers used to cope with the low severe failures are predominantly rational thinking, positivethinking and emotional venting. All these strategies were found to have greater averages in low severe conditionthan in high severe condition indicating the likelihood of the customers employing these strategies when the problemis not perceived to be a severe one.DISCUSSION