Consumers sometimes see brands as relationship partners and expect that they conform to certain expectations, or relational norms. However, there is no valid and universal operationalization of these norms for the specific context of consumer-brand relationships. We address this gap by developing and validating a new scale in four studies.

In three studies, we show that semployee accent directly, indirectly (through intelligibility and trust), and/or conditionally affects customer participation (CP) in services positively or negatively, depending on the type of accent and its valence, the customer’s need for interaction, and the type of CP, i.e. voluntary, mandatory, or replaceable CP.