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Self‐Service Technology Users and Their Causal Attributions for Service Outcomes
Author(s) -
Jin Rui,
DeVaney Sharon A.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
family and consumer sciences research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.372
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1552-3934
pISSN - 1077-727X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1552-3934.2011.02102.x
Subject(s) - attribution , service (business) , outcome (game theory) , affect (linguistics) , psychology , applied psychology , business , social psychology , marketing , communication , mathematical economics , mathematics
The increasing infusion of self‐service technologies (SSTs) in service encounters calls for a better understanding of consumers’ responses to this service option. The objective of this study was to investigate how consumers attribute reasons for their success or failure experiences with SSTs and how such attributions affect their service evaluations. A scenario and questionnaire approach was used. Data were collected through an Internet survey sent to randomly selected students from a large Midwestern university. Quantitative analyses revealed that SST users displayed self‐serving bias by tending to ascribe the reasons to be more internal, stable, and controllable for a positive service outcome than for a negative service outcome. In addition, SST uses and employee‐served consumers showed different satisfaction patterns. Findings of the study provided new insight on attribution research and SST research.