Title
Not All That Glitters is Golden: The Impact of Procedural Fairness Perceptions on Firm Evaluations and Customer Satisfaction with Favorable Outcomes
Publication Date
6-17-2020
Abstract
Firms often strive to delight their customers and build strong customer-firm relationships by providing favored benefits to their customers. Drawing from the organizational justice literature, we show that even when customers receive favorable outcomes from distributively fair firm actions, considerations of procedural unfairness may adversely affect their firm evaluations. Procedural fairness salience and customers’ perceived relationship with the firm determine the extent to which procedural fairness affects firm-evaluations. Customers in communal relationships, focused on social/relational factors, are more sensitive to procedural fairness, leading to improved (diminished) firm evaluations when the procedure is perceived as fair (unfair). Those in exchange relationships are unaffected by procedural fairness and evaluate the firm based largely on outcome favorability. Firm trustworthiness mediates the impact of procedural fairness on evaluations. Implications of procedural fairness being driven by relational and non-instrumental considerations are discussed.
Publication Title
Journal of Business Research
Volume
117
First Page
357
Last Page
367
DOI
10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.06.006
Publisher Policy
Pre-print, post-print
Open Access Status
Licensed
Recommended Citation
Mathur, P., & Sarin Jain, S. (2020). Not All That Glitters is Golden: The Impact of Procedural Fairness Perceptions on Firm Evaluations and Customer Satisfaction with Favorable Outcomes. Journal of Business Research, 117, 357–367. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.06.006
