Homburg & Fürst - Organizational Complaint Handling

Question 1

Firms internal approaches to complaint handling

Answer 1

1 - mechanistic = establishing guidelines for quality of process, behavior & outcome

2 - organic = creating a favorable internal environment for customer orientation and complaint handling (training, shared values etc.)

Question 2

Customer justice evaluations

Answer 2

1 - procedural justice = perceived fairness of complaint handling process

2 - interactional justice = perceived fairness of employee behavior

3 - distributive justice = perceived fairness of outcome

Question 3

Main findings

Answer 3

1 - guidelines of mechanistic approach have a positive effect on the respective customer evaluations and therefore overall satisfaction and loyalty

2 - business type and industry moderate the effect, as B2C and service firms have stronger effects

3 - organic approach has a positive influence as well, but negatively moderates the effect of mechanistic approach -> less guidelines needed the better the staff is trained