The Dark Side of Customer Participation: The Antecedents of Customer Participation Stress

Transcription

1 1 The Dark Side of Customer Participation: The Antecedents of Customer Participation Stress While literature often points out the positive effects of customer participation, we shed light on the negative side of customer participation by introducing customer participation stress (CPS) as a new construct to literature. Therefor we examine the factors determining the perception of stress by applying the job demands-resources model to the customer context. With regard to customers as partial employees we both adopt variables from the original model and introduce new customer specific variables. Additionally we consider potential negative outcomes of CPS and therefor examine its influence on customer participation behavior. Our results show that CPS is positively affected by cognitive demands and can be reduced by social factors. We also found that CPS negatively affects customer participation behavior. We conclude, that managers should focus on positive social aspects of the employee-customer relationship to avoid negative outcomes of customer participation. Keywords: customer participation, participation stress, customer relationship Track: Service Marketing

2 2 1. Relevance of the Phenomenon Being Studied Most studies stress the positive outcomes of customer participation for both customers and firms. To the best of our knowledge, few studies acknowledge that coproduction also might have downsides for customers. Taking the role of a partial employee (Bitner, Faranda, Hubbert, and Zeithaml, 1997), customers might face strains during co-production as well as employees do during their daily business, particularly in complex services in which customers must make significant decisions and often lack the necessary expertise to participate successfully (Hilgert, Jeanne, and Sondra, 2003; Lusardi & Mitchell, 2007; Mayeaux et al., 1996). Thus, participation demands may overtax customers participation abilities, which we expect to result in customer participation stress. We develop and test a conceptual framework on the antecedents and consequences of customer participation stress. In particular we build on the job demandsresources (JD-R) model on the driver side and study the impact on customer participation and felt responsibility on the outcome side. 2. Potential Contributions to the Field This study aims to make a three-fold contribution to customer participation theory in general and to research of negative aspects of customer participation in particular. First, we introduce customer participation stress as a new construct to participation literature and examine which factors determine the perception of stress. Second, we show that the JD-R model of Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, and Schaufeli (2001) is applicable to a customer participation context. We both adopt variables from the original model in our context, but also introduce new customer specific variables to extend the model in a context-specific way. Third, we examine the influence of customer participation stress on customer participation behavior and customers felt responsibility. Thus, the findings of our study not only contribute to current research but also offer valuable insights for practitioners to improve the service process itself. Practitioners thereby can avoid overtaxing their customers and provide relevant support in the service process. Thus, we address the following research questions: 1. Which demands and resources do customers face during customer participation? 2. Do customers experience participation stress during the service production process, and if so, to what extent does it influence their participation behavior and felt responsibility for service outcomes? 3. Theoretical Foundations We draw on a framework based on the JD-R model of burnout (Demerouti et al., 2001). The model assumes that demands and resources are negatively related because demands may preclude the effectiveness of resources (Bakker, Demerouti, and Schaufeli, 2003; Demerouti et al., 2001). The JD-R model has shown that job demands are primarily related to exhaustion components of burnout and that a lack of resources is primarily related to disengagement (Demerouti et al., 2001). Particularly in complex professional services, customers become partial employees (Mills & Morris, 1986) and active co-creators of value: For example,

3 3 clients seeking legal advice need to disclose all relevant information and decide together with their lawyer on the most effective legal strategy. Financial services customers need to provide information to their financial advisor and understand as well as distinguish different products (Auh, Bell, McLeod, and Shih, 2007). In this context, we expect that customer demands like role overload, high cognitive demands and time pressure come up against customer resources like expertise, cognitive and social support by the service employee. A mismatch between demands and resources might cause stress and this in turn decreases customer participation and felt responsibility for the service outcome. 4. Research Context and Conceptual Framework Financial services provide a suitable context for our study, because financial products are highly complex and difficult to grasp, especially for financially unsophisticated people (Crosby, Kenneth, and Cowles, 1990; Van Rooij, Lusardi, and Alessie, 2011). Yet, structural reforms to social security and retirement provisions continue to shift more responsibility from the service provider to individual customers. Thus, we expect customer participation stress among people who have to make significant decisions in financial services. Building on the JD-R model to explore the emergence of customer participation stress we assume: Job demands such as workload or role conflicts require physical or psychological effort by the customer as a partial employee (Demerouti et al., 2001; Crawford, LePine, and Rich, 2010). Facing customer challenges during the service process we identify five relevant demands which we adapt to our context, i.e. role overload, disliked employee, cognitive demands, perceived partial employee status, and time-pressure. H1: Customer demands, i.e. a) role overload, b) cognitive demands, c) perceived partial employee status, d) time-pressure, e) disliked employee increase customer participation stress. According to the JD-R model demands can be balanced by job resources like supervisor support or skills of the employee (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Adapted to our research context we investigate cognitive and social employee support, customer expertise, and behavioral expertise as relevant customer resources. H2: Customer resources, i.e. a) cognitive employee support, b) social employee support, c) customer expertise, d) behavioral expertise, decrease customer participation stress. As stress is a negative psychological state, in which customers are overstrained by participation demands, we expect a negative impact on participation behavior. H3: Customer participation stress has a negative impact on customer participation behavior. In accordance with self- enhancement theory (Dunn & Dahl, 2012) self-threat relates positively to self-serving biases, which help people protecting their self-concepts. Customers who experience high levels of participation stress, associated with the danger of negative service outcomes, might protect their self-concept by denying responsibility for the service outcome. H4: Customer participation stress has a negative impact on customers felt responsibility for service outcomes.

4 4 Relying on job characteristics theory (Hackman & Oldham, 1976) employees felt responsibility for output increases their extra-role (Pearce & Gregersen, 1991) and proactive behavior (Fuller, Marler, and Hester, 2006). Thus, we believe that customers felt responsibility might influence their participation behavior as well. H5: Customers felt responsibility has a positive impact on customer participation behavior. 5. Methodology and Findings In order to test our hypotheses, we sample from the population of customers who had used an investment advisory service within the last 6 month. The sample (n=518) contains 254 customers with an investment advisory service within the last 1-3 month and 264 customers with an investment advisory service within the last 4-6 month by now. We used structural equation modelling to test our hypotheses with maximum likelihood parameter estimation. First estimations predominantly support H1. We proposed a positive effect of role overload, cognitive demands, perceived partial employee status, time-pressure and disliked employee on customer participation stress. Role overload (β =.461, p <.001), cognitive demands (β =.247, p <.001), time pressure (β =.323, p <.001) and disliked employee (β =.311, p <.001) positively affect customer participation stress. The effect of perceived partial employee status (β =.037, n.s.) is not significant but we found a trend in the expected direction. We expected a negative effect of customers resources on customer participation stress in H2. We found evidence for this hypothesis only for social support (β =-.11, p <.05) and behavioral expertise (β =-.068, p <.05). However, we found an unexpected negative effect of cognitive support on participation stress (β =.096, p <.01) and a nonsignificant effect of customer expertise (β =-.048, n.s.). We predicted that customer participation stress has a negative impact on customer participation behavior (H3) as well as on customers felt responsibility for service outcomes (H4). Both effects were not significant (β =-.055, n.s., β =.012, n.s.). However, we can confirm H5 as we found that customers felt responsibility positively affects customer participation behavior (β =.446, p <.001). By the date of the conference we will be able to present our final model relying on an intended sample size of 550 customers. 6. Conclusion The objective of this research was to adapt the JD-R model to a customer context and thus explain customer participation stress during service production. First results have shown that customer participation stress is positively affected by cognitive factors (e.g., cognitive demands, cognitive support) and can be reduced by social factors like social support. We also found evidence for the hypothesis that customer participation stress negatively affects customer participation behavior, which makes it a relevant aspect in the considerations of managers and researchers as well.

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