Error management in service security breaches

Abstract

Purpose Error management has begun to receive growing attention from both academic scholars and industry practitioners in marketing. However, the impacts of error management on consumers remain understudied. Taking data breach as an increasingly recognized error in the modern service industry, this paper aims to explore the impact of hotels’ error management on consumer attitudes and downstream behavioral intentions. This research also investigates whether such impacts can be moderated by data breach locality. Furthermore, this research examines the underlying mechanism through which a firm’s error management influences consumers’ attitudes and behaviors. Design/methodology/approach A total of 280 people were recruited to participate in a scenario-based experimental study and complete an online survey. Findings Results revealed that the impacts of a focal firm’s error management on consumer attitude, word-of-mouth, and revisit intention were only significant when the data breach occurred at the focal firm (versus the rival firm), which was mediated by consumer trust. However, this mediating effect of consumer trust was not found when the focal firm reacted to a data breach that occurred at a rival firm. Originality/value This research represents one of the first studies to introduce the concept of consumer trust to understand the impact of error management on consumers following a data breach. By further including data breach locality as a potential moderator, this research provides suggestions on how firms should strategize their marketing efforts for more effective results.

Functional or financial remedies? The effectiveness of recovery strategies after a data breach

“…Acquisti et al ., 2006; Goel and Shawky, 2009; Jeong et al ., 2019; Kashmiri et al ., 2017; Khan et al ., 2021; Romanosky et al ., 2011; Tayaksi et al ., 2021; Wang et al ., 2019). A few recent studies have turned their attention to consumers' emotional and behavioral reactions after data breaches and to approaches to managing consumers' negative reactions to data breaches (Ayaburi and Treku, 2020; Janakiraman et al ., 2018; Martin et al ., 2018; Wei et al ., 2019). In the following sections, we examine the literature in terms of the following key aspects: consumers' behavioral and emotional responses to data breaches and the subsequent recovery actions taken by organizations to address such breaches.…”

Consumers’ Change in Trust and Security after a Personal Data Breach in Online Shopping

“…The minimum that should be done is for online stores to keep reminding their users about using complex passwords when they register and each time they log into the system. Another important measure for the stores is to make sure the database of passwords provided by the consumers is strongly protected [82].…”

How can organizational tolerance toward frontline employees’ errors help service recovery?

“…An error management culture has a significant positive influence on employees' helping behavior (Guchait, Paşamehmetoğlu, and Lanza-Abbott, 2015), learning behavior, error reporting (Wang, Guchait, and Paşamehmetoğlu, 2020), service recovery performance (Guchait et al, 2019;Wang et al, 2020), customer trust, customer engagement behavior, consumer attitude, word-of-mouth, and revisit intention (Wei et al, 2017(Wei et al, , 2019 (see Table 1). It is of little surprise that studies crossing error tolerance and service recovery conclude that the quality of customer-employee interactions (here, through the service recovery process) rely on a symmetrical relationship with the quality of manager-employee interactions (here, through error tolerance).…”

“…Although the internal perspective adopted by Guchait et al (2015Guchait et al ( , 2019 and Wang, Guchait, and Paşamehmetoğlu (2020) that focuses on employees and managers, and the external customer-oriented perspective used by Wei et al (2017Wei et al ( , 2019 provide useful additions to the literature, they fail to grasp the whole picture of error management culture and service recovery. Indeed, internal and external perspectives appear potentially conflicting.…”

“…Error tolerance is logically a cardinal value of the error management culture (Frese and Keith, 2015;Wang, Guchait, and Paşamehmetoğlu, 2020), with more and more companies embracing error tolerance as part of their policy statement. Indeed, the literature on service recovery has shown its virtues in terms of helping behaviors (Guchait, Paşamehmetoğlu, and Lanza-Abbott, 2015), learning behaviors and error reporting (Wang, Guchait, and Paşamehmetoğlu, 2020), customer engagement behaviors (Wei et al, 2017), consumer attitude, word-of-mouth and revisit intention (Wei, Zhang, and Hua, 2019), and service recovery performance (Guchait et al, 2019).…”