Abstract

Service recovery is a critical moment of truth in retaining customers and reinforcing customer relationships, and has been considered as an “Achilles' heel” in online marketplaces. Poor service recoveries exacerbate the negative effects of the failure, producing a “double deviation” effect. The double deviation effect may arise from the seller’s power misuse and then dissolve the buyer-seller relationship (e.g., violate consumer psychological contract), elicit consumer negative emotions which lead to customer coping behaviors. This study links the theories of psychological contract violation (PCV), emotion, and coping from the power perspective to investigate the double deviation scenario in online auction marketplaces. Two moderators (perceived power and perceived consumer empowerment) are considered in our proposed model. Data collected from 181 consumers of one auction website provide support for the proposed model. The results shed light on what constitutes the determinants of consumer judgments while facing double deviation scenario and how consumers react to and cope with it in online marketplaces. Implications and limitations are discussed.

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