Managing service delivery on the Internet: Facilitating customers' coproduction and citizenship behaviors in service organizations

Abstract

This research examines the role of customer behavior in Internet service deliveries. A nomological network of customer behaviors and its antecedents is developed and tested in two studies. In the first study, two hundred individuals were surveyed about their customer satisfaction, socialization, coproduction, and citizenship behaviors in their most recent online service experience. Results show that customers distinguish between two types of behavior: required customer coproduction behaviors and voluntary customer citizenship behaviors. Furthermore, these two behaviors were predicted by differential antecedents. Customer coproduction was more strongly predicted by customer socialization than by customer satisfaction. Customer citizenship behaviors, on the other hand, were more strongly predicted by customer satisfaction than by customer socialization. In the second study, three hundred twenty-eight participants acted as customers in a simulated Internet service delivery. In a 2 x 2 factorial design, perceptions about customer satisfaction and perceptions about organizational citizenship behavior were manipulated prior to the service experience. Subsequently, measures of self-reported customer citizenship intentions as well as actual citizenship behaviors towards the organization were assessed. Results showed an effect on customer citizenship behaviors and intentions for customer satisfaction but not for organizational citizenship behavior. Participants in the condition with perceptions of high-customer-satisfaction engaged in more citizenship behaviors and reported greater intentions to do so in the future than those in the condition with perceptions of low-customer-satisfaction. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed from the perspective of organizational citizenship behavior and social exchange theory.