Retail store environment, store attachment and customer citizenship behaviour

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of physical and social retail store environment, referred to as “storescape”, retail store attachment and employee citizenship behaviour towards customers on customer citizenship behaviour.Design/methodology/approachThe research employed a descriptive quantitative, cross-sectional design with a self-administered survey. Data were collected through an online research panel provider from 415 customers of department and discount department stores in Australia.FindingsThe findings show social storescape predicts customer citizenship behaviour directly, and that store attachment mediates the effect of both physical and social storescape on this behaviour. Employee citizenship behaviour towards customers was found to moderate the effect of storescape on customer citizenship behaviour. In addition, the effect of both positive physical and social storescape was found to be greater in discount department stores than department stores.Practical implicationsIn addition to highlighting the factors that drive customer citizenship behaviour, the study shows that storescape factors and their effect vary for department stores versus discount department stores.Originality/valueThis study shows the effect of storescape on customer citizenship behaviour. Drawing on resource exchange theory, this study is the first-known to identify storescape as both physical and social resources which can influence retail store attachment and customer citizenship behaviour. The study provides new insights into the differential effect of storescape in department versus discount department stores in motivating customers to engage in citizenship behaviour. Further, the study makes an important contribution by demonstrating the moderating role of employee citizenship behaviour towards customers.

Mix&Match: A Resource-Based Complaint Recovery Framework for Tangible Compensation

Resource exchange theory suggests service recovery compensation is optimal when it is commensurate with what was lost (e.g., refund for overcharging). However, in practice, companies cannot always follow the theory-driven prescriptions, and the complaint recovery literature remains silent on how to best recover in such suboptimal situations. This study takes a resource-based theory stance to propose Mix&Match, a complaint recovery framework for tangible compensation offers (refunds, redeliveries, or credits) to optimize customer retention and lifetime value in both optimal and suboptimal complaint recovery scenarios. We find that matching tangible compensation with the complaint cause (e.g., redelivery for expired products) is the most effective recovery response for improving customer retention and lifetime value. However, in suboptimal nonmatching scenarios, monetary compensation in the form of store credit proves to be the most effective response.

Leader–Member Relationship and Burnout: The Moderating Role of Leader Integrity

In this study, we propose and test the idea that a strong relationship between leader and follower will be associated with the subordinate’s burnout. We base the study on the leader–member exchange framework (LMX), resource exchange theory, and the job demands–resources model of burnout, and conceptualize that a strong LMX is associated with burnout in two ways: high LMX involves high job demands, which lead to exhaustion; low LMX involves low job resources, which leads to cynicism. We propose that the relationship between LMX and the two forms of burnout will be stronger when the leader is perceived to be low on moral integrity. Using a survey of 218 employees, we find support for the hypotheses. Implications for future research and managerial practices are discussed.

Social Support as an Interpersonal Construct

Summary: The present article relied upon interpersonal theory ( Sullivan, 1953 ), the interpersonal circumplex model ( Leary, 1957 ), resource exchange theory ( Foa & Foa, 1974 ), and the meta-constructs of agency and communion ( Bakan, 1966 ; Wiggins, 1991 ) in the attempt to explicate a theoretical and measurement model of social support. The Support Actions Scale - Circumplex (SAS-C; Trobst, in press ) provides a circumplex measure of social support whose psychometric characteristics are comparable to the best circumplexes reported in the literature. Empirical findings using this recent measure are summarized and interpreted with respect to an interpersonal theory perspective.