Failure in servicing has detrimental effects upon customers, which can be translated into loss of resources. As such, this study employed the conservation of resources (COR) theory and developed a novel conceptualization that captures customers’ resource losses (after a failure), as well as their complaint process, by capturing dynamic loss, activation, and recovery of customers’ resources, in the case of a service failure. The use of online features and platforms for customers to voice their complaints was conceptualised as resource integration between the customer and the firm. The outcomes revealed online complaining as self-protective and selfenhancement behaviour. It is also unravelled in this study that various personal- and firm-related resource integrations in an online complaining context could result in varying emotional states and behavioural intentions among the affected customers towards the defaulting firm. These results open up an avenue for firms to devise effective intervention strategies.

• Laszlo Sajtos(University of Auckland, New Zealand)
• Yean Shan Beh(University of Auckland, New Zealand)