Coping mechanism beyond brand forgiveness: do individual personality traits matter among online shoppers?
| Date | 31 May 2024 |
| Pages | 633-653 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-03-2023-4386 |
| Published date | 31 May 2024 |
| Author | Upasana Seth,Harmeen Soch |
Coping mechanism beyond brand forgiveness:
do individual personality traits matter among
online shoppers?
Upasana Seth and Harmeen Soch
Department of Management and Hospitality, I K Gujral Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala, India
Abstract
Purpose –This study aims to contribute to the darker side of consumer–brand interactions by examining therelationship between consumer-related
antecedents, particularly consumer personality traits, in triggering brand-hate emotions. Additionally, the link between brand hate and brand
forgiveness was also taken into account, as well as the moderating impact of personality attributes. The impact of brand forgiveness on consumer
coping behavior was investigated, particularly for brand switching (flight) and negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) (fight) on Indian e-commerce
shopping websites/apps.
Design/methodology/approach –Using a structured questionnaire survey and a nonprobability purposive sampling approach, data were obtained
from 438 online shoppers who had experienced hate directed at a particular shopping website or app. The hypotheses were tested statistically using
partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling with SmartPLS 4 software.
Findings –First, the findings demonstrate that agreeableness, extraversion and neuroticism significantly affected brand hate. Second, the results
indicate that personality traits, particularly extraversion and conscientiousness from the Big-Five model, play a substantial role in moderating the
relationship between brand hate and brand forgiveness. Third, the study also reveals the signi ficance of brand forgiveness in mitigating the adverse
consequences of NWOM and brand switching in the context of e-commerce platforms.
Practical implications –Practical steps such as complaint-management processes and prompt resolutions through anappropriate means of active
interaction and understanding the consumer’s personality when their concerns are heard and handled can help brand managers earn customers’
forgiveness and reduce brand hate toward e-commerce websites/apps.
Originality/value –Based on the authors’understanding, this study is the initial one to incorporate brand hate, brandforgiveness and coping
strategies into the model in a service context with the interaction effect of consumer personality traits.
Keywords Big-Five traits, Brand hate, Brand forgiveness, Consumer–brand relationships, Coping strategy, E-commerce website/apps
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Even well-established brands may fail to provide satisfactory
customer experiences (Aaker et al., 2004;Khamitov et al.,2020).
Giventhe recent world’shyper-connected nature, businesses an d
brands are exposed to hostile consumer responses in the form of
brand hate. The upsurge in internet and social media channels
has leveraged consumers and offered opportunities for frustrated
and nasty customers to openly vent their frustration through
caustic remarks, negative reviews and hate website formations
(Abbasi et al., 2023). We can observe how people use social
media platforms to criticize other people, businesses, brands or
ideas they believe to be harmful to them. Negative encounters
between consumers and businesses or brands often lead to
excessive and irrational hostility toward these businesses or
brands.
Such negative brand interactions can cost the brand millions of
dollars in unwarranted brand suffering by driving away many
current customers and alienating many potential ones (Kähr
et al.,2016). To understand the brand-hate emotion as a “darker
side”of the consumer–brand relationship, researchers
investigated the determinants (Bryson and Atwal, 2019;Islam
et al.,2020;Kucuk, 2019), outcomes (Pinto and Brandão, 2021;
Zarantonello et al.,2016)andstrategies(Bayarassou et al., 2020;
Hegner et al.,2017) to provide deeper insights into this
phenomenon. The vast majority of research on brand hate is
either empirical or conceptual in nature, or qualitative in
approach, and is tested mostly on Western cultural samples
(Bryson and Atwal, 2019;Sarkar et al.,2020).
Surprisingly, in the brand-hate literature, only some studies
(Christodoulides et al.,2021;Costa and Azevedo, 2022;
Fetscherin, 2019;Tsarenkoand Tojib, 2015) have investigated
the significance of a unified system or coping strategy that
enables businesses to repair damaged relationships with their
customers and turn negative brand associations into positive
ones. Hafizet al. (2022) claimed that forgiveness serves as a
central mechanism for restoring the relationships between
theology, philosophy and psychology. However, research on
The current issue and full text archiveof this journal is available on Emerald
Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
33/6 (2024) 633–653
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-03-2023-4386]
Received 8 March 2023
Revised 30 August 2023
24 February 2024
30 April 2024
Accepted 1 May 2024
633
consumer forgiveness of brands in the marketing environment
is still imprecise and underdeveloped and lacks a clear
definition that wouldhelp mend a strained relationship.
Most existing academic research on brandhate has focused
on product-associated brands or traditional brick-and-mortar
businesses (Bryson and Atwal, 2019;Islam et al., 2018;Jain
and Sharma, 2019;Kucuk, 2018a;Sarkar et al.,2020),
completely neglecting the scope of online service-associated
brands. Businesses in the post-pandemicera have embraced an
online retail ecosystem and switchedfrom brick-and-mortar to
click-and-mortar procedures (Braojos et al., 2019;Huang and
Benyoucef, 2013). Despite decreased consumer spending,
economic slowdown, and uncertainty induced by COVID-19,
India’s vibrant e-commerce sector has experienced an upward
growth trend. By 2034, it is projected to overtake the USA as
the world’s second largest e-commerce industry (India Brand
Equity Foundation (IBEF), 2023). Solid sales growth was
observed in the online retailmarket in 2021[1], and by 2030, it
is anticipated that the Indian e-commerce industry will be
worth US$350 billion (India Brand Equity Foundation
(IBEF), 2022). According to NASSCOM (2022) and Statista
(2023), this secular growth is supported by strong underlying
fundamentals regarding expanding internet penetration, entry
of foreign majors, rise in smartphone adoption, Gen-Z
consumers, the influence of social media, digital payments,
changing demographic profiles, startup growth and digital-
friendly policies of the government. Bain and Company(2022)
report that Indiahas the third-largest online shopper base in the
world, with 180–190 million in 2021 and 400–450 million in
2027, thus making it an exceedingly appealing e-commerce
market.
The retail sector is essential in densely populated countries
such as India, where the population approaches 1.4 billion
individuals. With the Western market having grown to saturation
and China tightening its regulations, India is emerging as a
primary battlefield for online retailers (Kumar and Ayodeji,
2021). Retailers hoping to cash in India’s rapidly expanding
middle class and rising disposable income are gearing up to
convert the country’s large population of Internet and
smartphone consumers into online shoppers (Deloitte, 2022).
However, in the realm of electronic e-commerce, when
service providers fail to effectively meet the necessities of their
online clients, they tend to disengage from platforms and
develop unfavorable impressions of the associated brands. To
address crises in the digital arena, businesses and app
developers are becoming more concerned toward identifying
the underlying reasons why usershate certain branded apps
(Islam et al., 2020).
In contrast to previous research, this study seeks to address
the gaps in the literature by investigating the link between
consumer-related factors, specifically the role of personality
traits, and the brand-hate phenomenon (Kucuk, 2019). The
association between brand hate and consumers’willingness to
forgive the brand after a transgression is also duly considered,
with the potential moderating influence of individual
personality traits (Costa and Azevedo, 2022). According to
Curina et al. (2020), e-commerce falls under the category of
hated service brands and is an unexplored area. This study is the
first to focus on brand hate in India’s rapidly growing e-
commerce sector. The effect of brand forgiveness on consumer
coping strategies in the aftermath of a brand transgression was
also examined, with a focus on brand switching (flight strategy)
and negative word-of-mouth (NWOM ) behavior (fight strategy).
The remainder of this paper is structuredas follows. Section
2 describes the theoretical basis for the constructs being
studied, followed by the research hypotheses based on direct
and moderated relationships. Sections 3 and 4 present the
research methodology and findings, respectively. Section 5
discusses the results and theirimplications before outlining the
limitationsand suggestions for future studies.
2.Research background and hypothesis
development
Based on the research conducted by Lazarus and Folkman
(1984), our study focused on the idea of stress and coping.
Coping refers to the cognitive and behavioral strategies
employed to effectively handle internal and external pressures
associated with situations that are subjectively perceived as
significant and distressing (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). An
individual’s evaluationof the circumstances significantly affects
their resulting emotions, coping mechanisms and future
consequences (Biggs et al.,2017). The literature discusses two
distinct coping strategies: problem-focused and emotion-
focused. Problem-focusedcoping aims to deal directly with and
manage the source of stress (through voicing or negotiation),
whereas emotion-focused copingregulates one’s internal
emotions arising as a consequence of a stressful encounter
(Nobi et al., 2021).
Extant brand-hate literature focuses on problem-focused
coping strategies such as complaining, revenge, financial
sacrifice to harm the brand and boycotts, but limited insights
have addressed the role of emotion-focused coping strategies
(e.g. forgiveness) in relinquishing negative emotions. Using
coping theory as the foundational theoretical framework, the
current model conceptualizes forgiveness as an emotion-
focused strategy that addresses internalized reactions to
distressing emotions (i.e. brand hate). The practice of
forgiveness alleviates the stress that arises from unpleasant
feelings caused by transgressions and facilitates constructive
relationships between consumers and transgressors (Harrison-
Walker, 2019). After choosing the path of forgiveness,
consumers are motivated toward more positive outcomes and
reduce the negative consequenceslinked to fight (NWOM) and
flight (switching) strategies as outcomes of extreme hate
emotions.
2.1Hate emotions
Hate is an unpleasant emotional state that a person may
encounter in interpersonal interactions (Yadav and
Chakrabarti, 2022). Researchershave discovered that negative
emotions have a more significant influence on an individual’s
behavior than positive emotions. In the field of psychology,
there are two distinct theoretical perspectives on hate. One
perspective posited hate as a singular emotion associated with
emotional detachment, extreme dislike, aggressive impulses,
emotional rejectionand devaluation (Zarantonello et al.,2016).
Contrastingly, Sternberg (2003) posited the duplex theory of
hatred, which explores disgust, contempt and anger as the
primary affective components that underpin the construct of
Coping mechanism beyond brand forgiveness
Upasana Seth and Harmeen Soch
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Volume 33 · Number 6 · 2024 · 633–653
634
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