The purpose of this article is to summarize the current research in the field of complaint handling, specifically to focus on how the organizational response to a customer complaint affects the postcomplaint customer behavior. A model framework is presented that divides these organizational responses into six separate dimensions (timeliness, facilitation, redress, apology, credibility, and attentiveness) and takes an in-depth look at each dimension in turn. Major questions and conclusions are presented for each dimension, which attempt to clarify what is really known or not known about the effect of that dimension on postcomplaint customer behavior. Special topics of future areas of research are discussed and a revised framework is presented to facilitate future research.

Complaint management has become increasingly important in the tourism and hospitalityfields, yet little is really known about how complainers assess the organizational response, and how those assessments affect their future consumer behavior as far as word-of-mouth activity and repurchase intentions are concerned. This research suggests an answer by presenting and testing a model of complainants' perceptions of the organizational response and the impact of the organizational response on postcomplaint customer behavior. The results provide partial support for the model. Attentiveness is the most important organizational response dimension, affecting both word-of-mouth activity and repurchase intentions. Managerial implications are discussed.

International animosity significantly affects the purchase of foreign products. However, domestic conflicts are also rampant in many countries, giving rise to similar issues. October 2000 marked the beginning of the second Arab Intifada (uprising) in Israel. In contrast to the first Intifada of the late 1980s and early 1990s, this time, Israeli Arabs joined the Palestinians in violent demonstrations in Israeli locations with large Arab concentrations. This research studies Jewish Israelis’ reactions to Arab Israelis in the context of purchases and consumption of products and services produced or marketed by Arab Israelis. It examines animosity, its antecedents, and its consumption consequences within the large Jewish majority of the population in Israel. The authors find that dogmatism, nationalism, and internationalism affect animosity, which in turn predicts willingness to buy and actual changes in purchase behavior for goods and services produced or marketed by Israeli Arabs. In contrast to previous research, animosity also predicts product judgments.

Purpose -This paper seeks to assess the impact of consumer ethics and their piracy attitudes on piracy behaviors. The extent of such piracy is difficult to estimate because no worldwide statistics are available, but conservative estimates indicate that it costs manufacturers billions of dollars. Design/methodology/approach -The research was conducted using Israeli consumers through a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed mostly through regression models. Findings -Attitudes to piracy served as a partial mediator of the impacts of consumer morals and ethics on actual piracy.Research limitations/implications -The major limitation is the use of a convenience sample and future research should replicate and extend this study using random samples. Practical implications -First, firms should advertise piracy as unethical. This would result in recognition of unethical piracy behavior by some part of the population. For piracy reduction, such people should recognize the need to "balance the ethical book" within the same context of behavior. In other words, if they have pirated from a company in the past, such people should be encouraged to purchase from the same company in the future. Originality/value -The paper assesses the impact of consumer ethics and their piracy attitudes and behaviors.

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Although noncomplaining dissatisfied consumers represent a vast majority of the dissatisfied consumers, they have not yet received adequate attention from marketing researchers. To understand the paradoxical combination of dissatisfaction and absence of complaint, the authors use the Lazarus cognitive-emotive model of coping with situational challenge. They added a moderator, the Seeking Redress Propensity (SRP) to this model and then developed a theoretical model and a set of hypotheses. A sample of consumers who had experienced a negative incident with the bank were administered a questionnaire by telephone. The sample was designed in such a way that half of them had complained and half had not. It was found that SRP is a significant moderator. In addition, SRP is shown to be strongly related to the likelihood of complaining. Lazarus’s model is basically supported, mostly for the customers scoring higher on SRP. Theoretical and managerial implications are proposed.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to highlight the problems in the measurement of service quality, why management seems to ignore some of the costs of poor service quality, as well as the repercussions of this, and how to implement service quality correctly in organizations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper defines service quality and highlights some of the main points of the literature. The paper then focuses on developing a matrix to categorize quality costs which offers insights as to why more managers have not fully implemented service quality in their organizations.FindingsUtilizing this quality costs matrix, the paper focuses on describing several of the main problems or pitfalls in service quality implementation.Practical implicationsIn light of these findings, the paper discusses the practical implications and focuses on recommendations how to implement service quality correctly.Originality/valueThe paper suggests a novel categorization of quality costs and suggests recommendations that will assist managers to correctly implement service quality and eliminate the problems of poor quality. There are also future research recommendations to further the knowledge of service quality theory and implementation.

The efficiency/value creation (effectiveness) debate has been mostly one sided through the years in favor of efficiency. However, a new way of looking at things has started to even out the balance. In this article, we will discuss both sides of the debate, state the underlying problem at the base of the debate, and give examples of how this debate actually destroys value. In most cases, this failure is not really a failure, but was designed into the system by misguided managerial choices. We then present our solution based on thinking holistically about productivity and efficiency in a world of co-creation, and discuss ways for managers to implement it in their organizations. This implementation is based on current examples from the literature, as well as a discussion as to why these ways are so effective. In a sense, in a world of co-creation, efficiency becomes less important, as the customer is willing to pay more money for a higher value product, thus covering the cost of a slightly less efficient process.