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Compared with conventional products, sustainable products continue to attract relatively lower market shares. To increase customer acceptance, many sustainable products feature third-party certified labels (TPCL), yet it is unclear whether TPCL are effective and what processes and boundary conditions define their role in consumer decision making. Across three experimental studies, this research determines that sustainable products are characterized by credence qualities, associated with increased perceptions of risk, which negatively influence consumers' purchase intentions. Drawing on signaling theory, this study also shows that TPCL on sustainable products provide brand-like information cues that reduce the perceived risk of sustainable products. Finally, a third experimental study demonstrates that consumers must perceive TPCL as credible for them to reduce consumers' risk perceptions.

This research distinguishes between employees' customer orientation (ECO) and customer orientation as perceived by customers (COPC) to investigate the contingencies of the relationship between these two constructs. Drawing on emotional contagion theory and using a dyadic field study design, the authors examine whether ECO affects COPC, as well as whether the link between ECO and COPC might be mediated by employees' authentic emotional displays. They also examine service scripts and the accuracy with which customers detect employees' authentic emotional displays as moderators of this mediated link. The findings confirm the important role of ECO as an influence on COPC and provide evidence that employees' authentic emotional displays mediate the effects of ECO. In addition, service scripts and customers' detection accuracy have moderating effects.

This research investigates the influence that social sources in the service environment exert on customer unfriendliness. Drawing on social norms theory, the authors demonstrate that descriptive norms (i.e., what most people are perceived to be doing in a certain situation), in the form of unfriendliness by service employees and fellow customers, predicts customers' unfriendliness toward employees. Injunctive norms (i.e., beliefs about which behaviors are approved by important others) and identification with fellow customers exert moderating effects. Specifically, strong injunctive norms can buffer the effect of descriptive norms. Furthermore, fellow customers influence a customer's unfriendliness only if he or she identifies either very strongly or very weakly with them. By clarifying the role of norms in service encounters, this study provides insights on when unfriendly customer behavior is likely to occur. Managerial implications for companies who want to diminish customer unfriendliness are discussed.

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