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Consumer complaining behaviour and conflict handling style Timothy M. Daly, University of Western Australia, [email protected] Julie Anne Lee, University of Western Australia, [email protected] Geoffrey N. Soutar, University of Western Australia, [email protected] Abstract Conflict handling styles is a commonly examined construct in negotiation and organisational research, however there is little research on this topic in the marketing literature. The current study begins to address this deficiency by examining the relationships between preferred conflict handling styles and complaining behaviours in a service encounter. The results show that people’s preference for the oblige, avoid, and dominate conflict handling styles is related to their use of complaint behaviours in a service failure situation. Keywords: Complaining behaviour, service failure, conflict handling style

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Consumer complaining behaviour and conflict handling style Introduction We experience conflict every time we make a decision and interpersonal and organisational conflict is inevitable (Easterbrook et al., 1993), which led Tjsvold (2006, p. 93) to note, “people in every walk of life must deal with conflict daily.” Rahim (2002, p. 207) defined conflict as “an interactive process manifested in incompatibility, disagreement, or dissonance within or between social entities,” including the self, other individuals, groups, or organisations. Given this wide definition, it is surprising marketing researchers have not examined conflict in detail. Indeed, despite the pervasiveness of people’s need to manage conflict, very little research has examined conflict in marketing (Song, Xie, and Dyer, 2000), with most such research typically focussing on channel conflict (e.g., Gaski, 1984), industrial buyer-seller negotiations (e.g., Perdue, Day, and Michaels, 1986) or marketing management (e.g., Song et al., 2000). In contrast, consumer researchers have largely ignored conflict management theory (Macintosh and Stevens, 2008), even though conflict is inherent is consumer complaining, which is a widely research consumer behaviour area (Maute and Forrester, 1993; Ngai et al, 2007; Singh, 1988). To date, only one study has integrated conflict handling style theory and consumer complaint behaviours (Macintosh and Stevens, 2008). The aim of the present research was to extend this research by examining the relationships between people’s preferred conflict handling style and their propensity to engage in particular complaint behaviours in a tourism service failure context. These constructs are discussed in the following sections. Conflict Handling Styles Conflict handling styles can be defined as “the different strategies that people may use in dealing with others in potentially adversarial social or business situations” (Kleinman et al., 2003, p. 62). Several theories have been suggested to describe the different conflict handling styles people use; the most popular of which is the dual-concerns model (Pruitt, 1983). This model suggests the types of conflict handling style (oblige, avoid, dominate, integrate, and compromise) used vary along two dimensions; the first being concern for self and the second being concern for others (Rahim and Bonoma, 1979). Thomas (1976) described each of the five conflict handling styles suggested in this model, which are shown in Figure 1, as: Integrate. People using this style have a high concern for self and a high concern for the other. This style can be thought of as cooperative and assertive. Oblige. People using this style have a low concern for self and a high concern for the other. This style can be thought of as cooperative, but unassertive. Dominate. People using this style have a high concern for self and a low concern for the other. This style can be thought of as uncooperative and assertive. Avoid. People using this style have a low concern for self and a low concern for the other, as well as a general lack of concern about satisfaction. This style can be thought of as uncooperative and unassertive. Compromise. People using this style have a moderate concern for self and a moderate concern for the other. This style can be thought of as a midway point for both cooperativeness and assertiveness.

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Figure 1: Conflict Handling Styles Derived from the Dual-Concerns Model (Adapted From Rahim, 2002; Thomas et al. , 2008)

Consumer Complaint Behaviour Consumer complaint behaviour (CCB) can be defined as the “responses triggered by perceived dissatisfaction which is neither psychologically accepted nor quickly forgotten with consumption of a product or service” (Phau and Sari, 2004, p. 407). Dissatisfaction is a negative disconfirmation between expected product or service performance and perceptions of the actual performance rendered (Oliver and Swan, 1989). CCB has been related to several individual differences, including age (e.g. Bearden and Mason, 1984), attitude towards complaining (e.g. Blodgett et al., 1995; Richins, 1982), personal values (e.g. Rogers and Williams, 1990), personality (e.g. Beardon and Mason, 1984; Harris and Mowen, 2001), and culture (e.g. Ngai et al, 2008). CCB research is particularly relevant in service contexts, as the inherent intangibility of services can lead to differing levels of expectations and perceptions of service (Ngai et al., 2008). In terms of conflict theory, CCB may be a result of interpersonal conflict between service provider and the consumer, or intrapersonal conflict when consumer expectations are higher than the perceived quality of service delivery. In the current study, the CCB that resulted from the interpersonal conflict between a service provider and a consumer in a service failure situation was examined. Conflict Handling Style and Consumer Complaint Behaviour As CCB is an outcome of conflict, it should be related to people’s conflict handling style preference, especially if the action behind the complaint is important. Consequently, it was expected a preference for the two styles related to high concern for self (the dominate style and, to a lesser extent, the integrate style) would be positively related to active complaining behaviours. The dominate style is characterised by putting personal concerns above others, whereas the integrate style is characterised by attempts to satisfy each party. Thus, people’s active complaining, such as arguing with the provider or giving negative word of mouth, would be seen as a necessary step toward obtaining satisfaction. Conversely, those people with a preference for the two conflict handling styles related to a low concern for self (oblige and avoid) should complain less. Thus, it can be suggested:

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H1: People who prefer the dominate conflict handling style are more likely to actively complain than people who prefer the a) oblige conflict handling style or b) the avoid conflict handling style. H2: People who prefer the integrate conflict handling style are more likely to actively complain than people who prefer the a) oblige conflict handling style or b) the avoid conflict handling style. H3: People who prefer the avoid conflict handling style are more likely to avoid complaining than people who prefer the a) dominate conflict handling style or b) the integrate conflict handling style. H4: People who prefer the oblige conflict handling style are more likely to avoid complaining than people who prefer the a) dominate conflict handling style or b) the integrate conflict handling style. It was also expected the importance a consumer attached to the situation would influence the relationship between conflict handling style and CCBs, as there may be a threshold below which a situation is not perceived as conflict. As such, situations were examined in two conditions: (1) where there was no attempt to make amends or recover from a service failure a clear conflict situation -, and (2) where a provider attempted to recover from the failure. It was expected the hypotheses would not hold in the service failure recovery condition. Methodology Data Collection The data were collected from a convenience sample of students at Brigham Young University-Idaho (USA), who were recruited in undergraduate psychology classes. In-class announcements informed students of the survey, which was followed by an email directing respondents to the study’s website. One hundred and eighty-two students were invited participate in the survey, and 154 completed it, providing a response rate of 85%. The sample was typical of a US undergraduate psychology class in terms of gender (67% female) and age (M = 21, SD = 4) distributions and a high proportion were born in the USA (94%). Instruments Conflict handling styles were measured using Rahim’s (1983) Organizational Conflict Inventory II (ROCI-II). The ROCI-II is a 28-item instrument measured on a 5-point Likerttype ratings scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. In order to investigate complaining behaviour intentions, respondents were presented with one of two service failure (recovery) scenarios adapted from Maute and Forrester’s (1993) and Schoefer and Ennew’s (2005) research. This scenario presented a situation at an airline ticket counter in which the respondent was unable to obtain the service for which they had paid. A subset of the items were selected from Maute and Forrester’s (1993) scale to measure three aspects of complaint behaviour; namely negative word of mouth (NWOM), argument and avoidant behaviour. This subset of CCB was examined as the focus of the study was on the active complaining versus passive complaining behaviours, which are most explicitly captured by NWOM, arguing and avoiding. Additionally, imposed time constraints on data collection necessitated the prioritisation of the measures included in the study.

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Analysis Reliability and Validity Before examining the hypothesised relationships, the ROCI-II data was assessed for unidimensionality, reliability, and convergent validity through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), while discriminant validity was assessed through Fornell and Larker’s (1981) procedure. Although the ROCI-II instrument was designed to measure the five separate conflict handling styles outlined in Figure 1, both the CFA results and Fornell and Larker’s (1981) procedure strongly indicated that the integrate and compromise subscales should be combined into a single integrate scale. The remaining four scales demonstrated adequate unidimensionality, reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity. Complaint behaviour manipulation checks Three items were included as manipulation checks to see whether the two scenarios were perceived as having different levels of service failure and/or recovery (measured on 5-point scales). As expected, the service recovery scenario had significantly higher means for the two positive manipulation checks than did the service failure scenario [“How well did the employee handle the situation?” (M = 4.42 vs. 1.59; t = 20.73, p < 0.001) and “How helpful was the employee?” (M = 4.09 vs. 1.58; t = 18.40; p < 0.001)]. Also as expected, the service recovery scenario had a significantly lower mean for the negative manipulation checks than did the service failure scenario [“How dissatisfied would you be in that situation?” (M = 2.65 vs. 4.40; t = 10.27, p < 0.001)]. Thus, the two scenarios differed significantly, and in the expected way, in terms of their level of service failure or recovery. Conflict Handling Styles and Complaining Behaviours The relationships between the conflict handling styles and complaining behaviour in response to the service failure scenario were examined first. As can be seen in the upper half of Table 1, the significant correlations were in the expected direction for the dominate, avoid, and oblige style preferences, but were not significant for the integrate style preference. In order to test the difference between these correlations, Steiger’s (1980) Z-statistic was calculated and compared against the one-tailed critical Steiger Z-statistic. Full support was found for H3a, H4a and H4b, while partial support was found for H1a, H1b, H2a, and H2b. However, no support was found for H3b. Partially supporting H1a and H1b, the dominate style was more strongly positively related to arguing (r = 0.39), but not NWOM (r = 0.28), than was the oblige (r = 0.07, Steiger’s Z(77) = 2.22, p < 0.05; r = 0.04, Steiger’s Z(77) = 1.60, ns., respectively) and the avoid style (r = -0.23; Steiger’s Z(77) = 4.14, p < 0.01; r = 0.02; Steiger’s Z(77) = 1.63, ns., respectively). Supporting H3a, the avoidance of complaining behaviour correlation with the avoid style (r = 0.32) was significantly greater than with the dominate style (r = -0.23, Steiger’s Z(77) = 3.57, p < 0.01). Supporting H4a, the avoidance of complaining behaviour correlation with the oblige style (r = 0.29) was significantly greater than with the dominate style (r = -0.23, Steiger’s Z(77) = 3.59, p < 0.01). In contrast, only one of the four correlations with the integrate style was significant, while one was partially significant. Supporting H4b, the correlation between avoidance of complaining behaviour and the oblige style (r = 0.29) was significantly greater than with the integrate style (r = 0.08, Steiger’s Z(77) = 1.75, p < 0.05). Partially supporting H2b, the arguing complaining behaviour correlation (r = 0.06), but not the NWOM correlation (r = -0.17), with the integrate

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style was significantly greater than the avoid style (r = -0.23, Steiger’s Z(77) = 1.85, p < 0.05; r = 0.02, Steiger’s Z(77) = -1.19, ns., respectively). As expected, the relationships did not hold when the provider successfully recovered from service failure. As can also be seen in Table 1, only one correlation between conflict handling styles and complaining behaviours was significant (r = 0.29 between dominate and NWOM). This suggests service failure recovery does not activate people’s preferred conflict handling style.

Recover n = 74

Fail n = 80

Table 1: Correlations between Conflict Handling Styles and Complaining Behaviours Subscales ARGUE NWOM AVOID

Avoid -0.23* 0.02 0.32**

ARGUE

-0.06

NWOM 0.14 AVOID 0.13 Note: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01

Conflict Handling Styles Oblige Integrate 0.07 0.06 0.04 -0.17 0.29** 0.08 0.05

0.16

-0.08 -0.14

-0.02 0.07

Dominate 0.39** 0.28** -0.23* 0.19 0.29** 0.02

Discussion and Future Research Directions This research suggests people’s preference for oblige, avoid, and dominate conflict handling styles is related to their use of complaint behaviours. However, a preference for the integrate style did not consistently predict complaining behaviour. People who preferred conflict handling styles that had a low concern for self (avoid and oblige) avoided complaint behaviour, whereas people who preferred a dominate conflict handling style were more likely to actively complain. It seems the level of concern for others reflected in the integrate style may interact with a high concern for self, reducing the drive to complain. In terms of managerial implications, recognising preferences for different conflict handling styles can impact the choice of complaint behaviour presents an opportunity to improve service recovery policies. For example, consumers who prefer the dominate conflict style are likely to be placated by responding to their high concern for themselves, such as through offering a token ‘victory’. Future research should consider different contexts, as well as use samples that are more generalisable than the current student sample. Additionally, expanding the examination of CCB to include exit and loyalty would potentially add to the body of knowledge. Finally, obtaining observational data, rather the self-report data used in the current study, would provide further evidence of the generalisability of these findings.

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Song, X. M., Xie, J., Dyer, B., 2000. Antecedents and consequences of marketing managers’ conflict-handling behaviors. Journal of Marketing, 64 (1), 50-66. Steiger, J. H., 1980. Tests for comparing elements of a correlation matrix. Psychological Bulletin, 87 (2), 245-251. Thomas, K. W. (1976). Conflict and conflict management. Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology. M. D. Dunnette. Chicago, IL, Rand-McNally: 889-935. Thomas, K. W., Thomas, G. F., Schaubhut, N., 2008. Conflict styles of men and women at six organization levels. International Journal of Conflict Management, 19 (2), 148-166. Tjosvold, D., 2006. Defining conflict and making choices about its management: Lighting the dark side of organizational life. International Journal of Conflict Management, 17 (2), 87-95.

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