Although the majority of prior literature has suggested the key reasons for consumer complaining in service failures are to vent negative emotions (e.g. anger, dissatisfaction) and to seek redress (Blodgett, Hill, & Tax 1997; Nyer 1997), some research has also pointed out that customers will give constructive suggestions to firms through complaining (Groth, 2005; Liu & Mattila, 2015). In this regard, consumer complaining can be classified into two types, namely, positive complaint (i.e., with constructive suggestion) and negative complaint (i.e., without constructive suggestion). Understanding what situations would dissatisfied consumers choose to give constructive suggestions in service failures would be of utmost important to firms. We suggest that a firm’s brand image may affect consumers’ intention to choose what types of complaint in service failures. In general, consumers may perceive a brand as having a competence image (e.g., professional and efficient) or having a warmth image (e.g., friendly and approachable) (Kervyn, Fiske and Malone, 2012). Comparatively speaking, a warmth image is associated with friendship and caring, whereas a competence image is associated with expertise. Therefore, it is possible that consumers would have a higher empathy and intention to help a firm with a warmth (vs. competent) image, and be more likely to choose positive complaint when a failure happens to this firm. An experimental study confirmed this prediction. In addition, we found that although a firm’s competence (vs. warmth) image does not affect the likelihood to give constructive suggestions in service failures, it leads to a higher level of return intention. Implications and future research directions will be discussed.

There has been a heated discussion worldwide over tourist deviances that disrupt lives of local residents and cause damage to companies, city authorities, and the natural environment. Previous studies primarily turn to discrepancies in the cultural and educational background between tourists and local residents to explain such phenomena. Nonetheless, the possibility of people inclining to misbehave simply because they are away from home has rarely been investigated. In this study, we seek to examine factors rooted in the nature of tourism that are accountable for such phenomena. According to the definition by UNWTO (1995), one of the key characteristics of tourism is the displacement of usual environment. Tourism, therefore, is inevitably associated with surroundings of unacquainted others residing in the unfamiliar environment. Following the social control paradigm, previous studies have revealed that people are more likely to enforce social control on in-group members than on out-group members (Nugier, Chekroun, Pierre & Niedenthal, 2009). We further propose that psychological closeness between people and surrounding others would have an impact on their expectation to receive others’ social contrail and consequently their intention to engage in the counternormative behavior. Using an experimental study, we found that participants in the travel condition, compared with those in the home condition, feel less close to surrounding others and are more likely to misbehave. Such effect is mediated by the perceived social control. Implications for organization and companies in the tourism sector are drawn to prevent the spread of tourist misbehavior. Limitations and future directions would also be discussed.