Exploring Cultural Differences in Customer Forgiveness Behaviour

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Exploring cultural differencesin customer forgiveness behavior

Haithem ZourrigUniversite du Quebec a Montreal, Montreal, Canada and

HEC Montreal, Montreal, Canada

Jean-Charles ChebatHEC Montreal, Montreal, Canada, and

Roy ToffoliUniversite du Quebec a Montreal, Montreal, Canada

AbstractPurpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper insight on the psychological mechanismof customer forgiveness viewed from a cross cultural perspective.

Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory, this paper relatesforgiveness cognitive, emotional and motivational patterns with differences in cultural valuesorientations.

Findings The insights from this paper suggest that idiocentric customers are more likely to adoptproblem solving strategies when they decide to forgive, whereas allocentric ones tend to regulate theiremotional responses to their environment such as expressing benevolence and goodwill, as they aremore sensitive to maintaining connectedness within group members.

Research limitations/implications Albeit conceptual and exploratory in nature, this paper isintended as a beginning for further empirical validation and theoretical refinement. The papercontends that forgiveness is a dynamic, interactive process that should be investigated with different

sequential orders. Furthermore, as customer forgiveness is related to time, longitudinal studies aremore appropriate to test the proposed model.

Practical implications Firms serving international markets as well as multiethnic ones wouldhave advantage to understand cultural differences in shaping customer forgiveness. This is relevant toconceive efficient marketing strategies aiming at managing interpersonal conflicts with wrongedcustomers and promoting benevolence and goodwill.

Originality/value Little is known about customer forgiveness. This paper adds a new insight byexamining cultural effects on forgiveness process, allowing for a more comprehensive view ofcustomer forgiveness triggers.

Keywords Customer satisfaction, Customer services quality, Consumer behaviour, Culture

Paper type Conceptual paper

IntroductionPrior research on service recovery has suggested that redress efforts such as apology,staff solving, explanation, and refund, are effective in restoring fairness (Kelly et al., 1993;Hoffman et al., 1995, etc.) and whereby in resolving interpersonal conflicts with betrayedcustomers. For instance, Folkes (1984) noted that when apologies are given, they reduceblame and punishment and increase liking and forgiveness. Even so, apologizing forones wrongdoing may not always be perceived as trustworthy and sincere andtherefore will not result in a resolution of an interpersonal conflict (Takaku et al., 2001).

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/1757-5818.htm

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Received 11 March 2008Revised 2 February 2009Accepted 11 April 2009

Journal of Service ManagementVol. 20 No. 4, 2009pp. 404-419q Emerald Group Publishing Limited1757-5818DOI 10.1108/09564230910978502


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In this regard, Hareli and Eisikovits (2006) showed that the effectiveness of an apology inachieving the resolution of a conflict depends not only on verbal and non-verbalcomponents included in the apologetic message but also on the displayed emotions whengiving apology. This finding emphasizes the urge to re-establish emotional bonds with

an offended customer as a path in regaining a trustworthy relationship, especially if theperpetrator firm intends working through failures. Accordingly, redress efforts need tobe most effective in helping customers recover from the negative emotions caused bytransgressing service failures (Smith and Bolton, 2002).

A 2003 Customer Care Alliance survey conducted with 1,097 American householdsechoes this need. When asking customers about their dissatisfaction with serviceproviders such as cell-phones and credit cards companies, the survey reveals thatamong the betrayed customers, 62 percent wanted to get a chance to vent their angerand to tell their side of the story. For these customers satisfaction with the recoveryefforts does not mean merely receiving a free gift or extra perks but mainly havingan opportunity to ventilate their negative emotions as a way to free themselves of

extreme anger (Spencer, 2003). This may explain why many customers, who have beenoffered a service recovery, remained still unsatisfied; as their emotional responses,following the recovery efforts, has been ignored by service providers (Chebat andSlusarczyk, 2005). In this line, we argue that conflict resolution process should gobeyond recovery efforts in a sense that it should insure the relinquishment of outrageand open the door for reconciliation.

Unfortunately, despite significant advances in recovery research, the emotionalreactions to recovery efforts have been neglected in the literature, as major works onthis issue have focused solely on the behavioral outcomes of service recovery such asword of mouth (Swanson and Kelley, 2001) and re-patronage (Smith and Bolton, 1998).Therefore, we propose that customer forgiveness is more relevant to complete theconflict resolution process, given that it emphasizes the neutralization of negativeemotions (e.g. anger and frustration) and their replacement with positive emotions(e.g. empathy and compassion).

In fact, marketers have paid little attention to customer forgiveness, although it mayenhance firm reputation as well as employees well-being (Stone, 2002). Moreover,forgiveness has the potential to accelerate the restoration of a strained relationshipbetween a service provider and a customer (Tsarenko and Gabbot, 2006); it may not onlyrestore the relationship to its original state but also enhance the quality of the commercialrelationship and encourage positive word of mouth (Chung and Beverland, 2005).

Notwithstanding the potential benefits of forgiveness within the business context,there is a serious limitation with major studies on forgiveness: most of them havefocused on western samples. In this regard, Fu et al. (2004) noted that major works on

forgiveness are based on research conducted within western cultures (McCullough,2001), and wonder if these findings are relevant for non-western cultures. In fact, thisambiguity around the forgiveness nature is more obvious with contradictory findings inliterature. On one hand, Takaku etal. (2001) noted that individuals from Eastern cultures( Japanese) may be more forgiving than individuals from Western cultures (Americans).On the other hand, Schwartz (1994) found no differences in forgiveness between theWestern (Americans) and non-Western (Indians) samples. Therefore, examiningcultural influences on the forgiveness process may allow for a more complete account for

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the triggers of forgiveness, paving the way for more universal theories unbiased bycultural perspective.

Hence, tactics that firms adopt to promote forgiveness in resolving conflicts withwronged customers, should take into account cultural differences within their markets,

especially in a context of globalization, where firms may serve international markets aswell as multiethnic markets. If the process of mediating conflict is better understoodacross cultures, more effective tactics may be adopted by business firms to promoteforgiveness between the involved parties and to restore and strengthen the relationship.

Obviously, customer forgiveness is an intriguing area in need of further research.In this regard, Chung and Beverland (2005) stated that future research should beconducted to develop a conceptual model of the customer forgiveness process.In addition, Tsarenko and Gabbott (2006) acknowledged the need for cross culturalstudies on customer forgiveness and call upon researchers to investigate the role ofculture in shaping forgiveness.

To address this shortcoming, this paper discusses how the forgiveness phenomenonmay be viewed as a coping process. Based on Lazarus et al. (1991, 1984) works, weadapt the cognitive-emotive process model to customer forgiveness context and extendit by including the idiocentric/allocentric tendency as a moderator variable.

Thus, the manuscript is organized in the following fashion: first, the forgivenessconcept is clearly defined as well as its dimensions. Second, the literature of culturalpsychology focusing on core concepts of collectivism (allocentrism) and individualism(idiocentrism) is reviewed. Third, the potential effects of cultural values orientationson customer forgiveness are discussed. As we proceed, we develop a set of propositionsand we conclude with some research avenues for further research.

Forgiveness conceptualizationForgiveness is a complex process involving: cognitive, affective, and motivational

responses to a transgressing event. In a service context, Chung and Beverland (2005)conceptualized customer forgiveness as a process following a service failure andinvolving: a cognitive effort of reframing the transgression, and give-up blame andfault-finding, a letting-go of negative emotions associated with the service failure and achange of becoming less motivated to harm the service provider. Accordingly,forgiveness is a process starting with a cognitive reaction, leading to emotions elicitationand resulting in motivational outcomes. More explicitly, the process is initiated by atransgressing service failure, followed by a recovery effort. Receiving a service recoveryleads the offended customer to reduce the perceived severity (Dunning et al., 2004) of theoffense and to make benevolent attributions that is to perceive the transgressing failureas external, less controllable and less stable (Takaku, 2001). This gives rise to asubsequent affective reaction toward the perpetrator firm implying an emotional

juxtaposition of positive emotions against negative unforgiveness ones, whicheventually entails neutralization or replacement of all or part of those negative emotionswith positive emotions (Worthington and Wade, 1999). This results in a motivationalresponse, when the offended customer deliberately forgoes opportunities of punishmentand harm infliction (Bradfield and Aquino, 1999; Worthington and Wade, 1999) againstthe offending service provider.

In addition to the forgiveness conceptualization as a process, scholars have used otherderived terms that fall under thecore concept of forgiveness namely willingnessto forgive

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(DeShea, 2003), forgiveness as a coping behavior (Tsarenko and Gabbott, 2006) andforgiveness as a coping strategy (Bradfield and Aquino, 1999). The former refers to apredisposition of being open to engaging in the process of releasing resentment aboutinterpersonal transgressions (DeShea, 2003), whereas, forgiveness as a coping behavior

(presented under problem-focused coping and emotion focused-coping), intends anadaptive effort to cope with persons environment, while forgiveness as a copingstrategy means a specific action or effort undertaken by the offended part in endorsinga coping behavior. For example, venting emotions and avoidance are coping strategiesof forgiveness that fall under the emotion-focused coping behavior, whereas planningor taking action are coping strategies that refer to a problem-focused coping behavior(Strelan and Covic, 2006).

Notwithstanding the terminological issue and the nature of the process that shapesforgiveness, many scholars in the field of psychology agree that forgiveness should notbe confused with other concepts such as pardoning, excusing, condoning, forgetting,denying, and reconciliation (Rye et al., 2001; Strelan and Covic, 2006). For instance,Dimakatso (2003) noted that forgiveness should be differentiated from pardoning(which is a legal term), condoning (which implies a justification of the offense),excusing (which implies that the offender has a good reason for committing theoffense), forgetting (which implies that the memory of the offense has simply decayedor slipped out of conscious awareness), and denying (which implies an unwillingnessto perceive the harmful injuries that one has incurred). In addition, scholars agree thatforgiveness is distinct from reconciliation. For example, Fincham (2000) argues thatreconciliation involves the restoration of the violated relationship and requires thegoodwill of bothparts. However, forgiveness is voluntarily initiated by the offended partwithout a necessary interest to restore or to continue with the relationship between thetwo parts. Thus, forgiveness is a prerequisite for reconciliation, but forgiveness canoccur without reconciliation (Orcutt etal., 2005). In other words, forgiveness is not an end

in itself but a means to reconciliation. It opens the door to a possible reconciliation(Barnett and Youngberg, 2004).

Forgiveness viewed through the cognitive emotive coping modelDrawing up on the cognitive appraisal theory (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984), wedevelop a cognitive emotive coping model that depicts how customer forgiveness maybe viewed as a coping process, that aims at restoring a psychological comfort. In arecent study, Tsarenko and Gabbott (2006) have emphasized the emotional aspect ofcustomer forgiveness over the cognitive and motivational patterns, without providingan explicative model.

Our work, attempts to advance this body of knowledge by explaining theachievement of forgiveness through the interplays between three process components

namely, cognitive appraisal (primary and secondary), emotions and coping behavior.Figure 1 depicts a model of customer forgiveness process. It suggests that a

transgressing service failure (e.g. interactional unfairness: treating a customer in a rudemanner) and service recovery efforts (e.g. apologizing) serve as an input into ongoing,cognitive appraisal process. At a first stage (primary appraisal), the offended customermentally contemplates the wrongdoing and reframes the transgressing failure in apositive and purposeful way (i.e. reducing the significance, the importance and themagnitude of an offense on his well-being). At a subsequent stage (secondary appraisal),

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the customer will forgo his right of justice (i.e. give-up blaming and fault finding) as herealizes that the perpetrator employee did not mean offending him since he hadapparently an intent to repair the failure. In turn, this will induce an emotional statechange (i.e. relinquishment of negative emotions and elicitation of positive ones) andimpact on coping outcome (i.e. working out with the offender what to do next, emotionalcontainment).

Challenge primary appraisal: reframing the transgressionChallenge is an appraisal of an opportunity for meaningful mastery or gain (Lazarusand Folkman, 1984). In the forgiveness context, challenge implies moving beyond anexperienced unfairness to viewing the ultimate response to the perpetrator firm as anopportunity for a relationship, to grow and improve (Ferguson et al., 1999).

In fact, an offended customer may identify the source of his stress not as the initialtransgression, but rather, the fact that he continues to ruminate about it. For instance, hemay rationalize that the transgressing service failure is not enough severe to justify thathe deserves a negative reaction, or that the wrongdoing has little impact on him eitherbecause it does not result in a great deal of inconvenience (especially if the serviceprovider has attempt to recover the wrongdoing) and/or because the transgressing

service failure does not occur so frequently that he will obsessively worry about. In thislight, leaving behind worries and rumination about the experienced transgression is asignificant challenge for a betrayed customer (Maltby et al., 2007).

Challenge secondary appraisal: give-up blaming and fault findingSecondary appraisal is a judgment about what might and can be done (Lazarus andFolkman, 1984). In weighing different options to react to a stressful encounter,a customer searches to understand if the wrongdoing was under or over the control of the

Figure 1.Customer forgivenessprocess model

Challenge

primary

appraisal

Offense

severity/

magnitude

Offense

frequency

- Stability

Challenge secondary

appraisal

- Controllability

(i.e, if the wrongdoing

was under or over the

control of the firm)

(i.e., whether the firm

was responsible for the

injury)

- Accountability

(i.e, if the wrongdoing

has or not occurred in

the past)

P1a P1b, 1c P2a, 2b, 2c, 2d P3a, 3b

Transgressing

service failure

Recovery effort

Reducing offense

significance and

importance

Giving up blaming and

fault finding

Negative emotions

relinquishment and

positive ones elicitation

Forgiveness

copings

Forgiveness

-Problem focused strategies:

-Emotion focused strategies:

Emotional containment:

feeling confident to get over

the hurt and displaying

positive emotions.

Deciding to leave voluntarily a

relationship or a situation

Expressing benevolence,

goodwill and sympathy.

Challenge Appraisal

Coping behaviors

Allocentrism/idiocentrism

P1 P2 P3

Discussing with the offender

what happened.

Seeking some form of redress,

Working out what to do next

Negative

emotions

e.g.,

anger

irritation

frustration

e.g.,

empathy

sympathy

compassion

Positive

emotions

Emotions

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firm (i.e. controllability), whether the firm was (or not) responsible for the injury (i.e.accountability) and if the wrongdoing has occurred in the past (i.e. stability)(Shteynberg, 2005). For example, in envisioning forgiveness, an offended customer mayrealize the lack of controllability and accountability of the service firm for negative

outcomes, which eventually results in give-up blame and fault finding (Tsarenko andGabbott, 2006).

Accountability refers to the assignment of the blame to the wrongdoer, taking himresponsible for the experienced injury. Literature on forgiveness showed that blameattributions is negatively correlated with forgiveness cognitions; the less a victimblames the offender the more likely he or she is to contemplate forgiveness (Bradfieldand Aquino, 1999).

Controllability refers to the degree of volitional influence one has over a cause(So, 2004). If a customer perceives that the service failure was not under the control ofthe service provider, he will be unlikely to be resentful against the firm (Folkes, 1984).Following this rationale, one can argue that the less control a firm has over awrongdoing, the more forgiving an offended customer will be.

Stability refers to the temporal nature of a cause that may be relatively enduring orchange from situation to situation and from moment to moment (So, 2004). There islittle evidence in the literature about the relationship between the willingness to forgiveand the stability of an injury. The few existing works showed a negative relationshipbetween the stability dimension and forgiveness intention; the less stable thewrongdoing the more likely an offended part is to contemplate (Takaku et al., 2001).

Emotions: relinquishment of negative ones and elicitation of other positive onesEmotions are at the core concept of forgiveness, to the extent that forgiveness isreferred to as an emotional juxtaposition of positive other-oriented emotions againstnegative ones, which leads to a neutralization or replacement of all or part of those

negative emotions with positive emotions (Worthington and Wade, 1999). If atransgression is appraised as a challenge, the secondary appraisal may shape empathicor conciliatory emotional responses (Strelan and Covic, 2006). Overall, it has beenaccepted, that forgiveness is associated with positive emotions such as empathy,compassion, sympathy (Worthington et al., 2001; Wade and Worthington, 2002).

In service context, most of service recovery research has usually focused oncustomers negative emotions (e.g. anger) and neglected positive ones (e.g. empathy),since service failures were often associated with negative valences (Bougie et al., 2003).In fact, when a service provider makes an appropriate recovery, customers negativeemotions may be reduced while positive ones may be increased. Such change ofemotional state is likely to motivate the offended customer to forgive the wrongdoing.

Forgiveness as coping behaviorsLazarus and Folkman (1984) distinguished between two forms of coping behaviornamely:

(1) problem-focused coping that is directed at managing or altering the problemcausing the distress (e.g. solving the problem, reducing its impact); and

(2) emotion-focused coping that is directed at regulating emotional response to theproblem (e.g. reducing negative emotions such as anger and frustration anddisplaying positive emotions such as empathy).

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Strelan and Covic (2006) advocate that forgiveness may be viewed as emotion-focusedcoping as well as problem focused coping. They support that forgiveness may beconceptualized as a problem focused coping strategy when it is concerned with theproblem that caused the stress, for example discussing with the offender what

happened and/or seeking some form of redress; deciding to leave a relationship or asituation; or simply working out what to do next. Alternatively forgiveness may beviewed as an emotion-focused coping when it is concerned primarily with theinternalized emotional responses to a transgression such as reducing anger andfrustration resentments.

A potential moderator allocentrism/idiocentrismIn marketing literature, the individualism-collectivism paradigm (Hofstede, 1980) wasrecognized to be the most central concept of cultural variability. However, severalcriticisms have been raised regarding the conceptualization and methodologicalapproaches used in developing individualism-collectivism dimensions (MacSweeney,2002). For instance, scholars argue that the process used in identifying such dimensionsis based solely on a subjective and arbitrary aggregation of items, that neglects thevariability between individuals who may have different even opposite cultural values(Fernandez et al., 1997). This misuse results in cases where samples of subjects from agiven culture yield different dimensions and scores (Schwartz, 1994). Anotherlimitation, regarding Hofstedes dimensions, is related to the fact that national culturalvalues are not stable over time, and are expected to change due to the global influencesthat affect cultures, although these changes are believed to be slow (Sivakumar andNakata, 2001).

Given that in a same culture customers may not always behave in a strictindividualist or collectivist manner; the terms idiocentrism and allocentrism have

been used to designate the individual-level orientations that reflect these culturalvalues (Triandis, 1989).

Thus, idiocentrism refers to person-level individualism, whereas allocentrism refersto person-level collectivism. More specifically, allocentrics tend to emphasize theinterdependent self more often, leading to a greater consideration of norms, obligations,and duties than do idiocentrics. They cling to in-group similarity and often show littleor no distinction between in-group and personal goals. On the other hand, idiocentricstend to sample the independent self more often, leading to a greater consideration ofattitudes, personal needs and rights than do allocentrics.

Manifestly, these differences in values orientation toward group members mayhave great implications not only on how individuals define themselves but also on howthey behave. In this regard, Aaker and Maheswaran (1997) claim that behavior of

members of individualistic cultures (idiocentrics) tends to be motivated by personalpreferences and inner drives, while behavior of members of collectivist cultures(allocentrics) tends to be more influenced by preferences and needs of close others.

In the next part of this paper, we attempt to extend the study model to other culturalcontexts by taking into account the effect of the idiocentrism/allocentrism trait thatmay potentially moderate the relationships between the appraisal process andemotional compartment and the relationship between; and elucidated emotion andcoping behavior.

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Forgiveness process across culturesExamining the relationship between forgiveness and differences in cultural valuesorientations is relevant, because the way through which one views one self in relationto others is an important determinant of willingness to forgive (Neto and Mullet, 2004);

as interdependent persons are sensitive to social bonds, and more concerned aboutmaintaining a good relationship with others, it could be expected that they will be moreinclined to restore social relationships that have been betrayed in the past, throughforgiveness. In contrast, independent persons who have less attachment to the group,and are more concerned about protecting their self welfare and ones rights over thoseof group are likely to have less interest in restoring social relationship and to forgive.

Accordingly, Neto and Mullet (2004) and Kadiangandu et al. (2001) suggest thatindividuals from collectivistic cultures may be more forgiving than individuals fromindividualistic cultures; the more interdependent individuals are, the higher theirpropensity to forgive.

More interestingly, Takaku et al. (2001) advocate that, depending on their valuesorientation, people may possess different motives in forgiving others. For instance, withrespect to independent persons (Americans), forgiveness is likely to be driven by aconcern about justice and fairness (justice motive). On the other hand, interdependentpersons, (Japanese), in deciding to forgive an offender, are more concerned aboutmaintaining a good relationship with others (relationship motive) and on the norm inthat particular situation (normative motive). By contrast, Suchday et al. (2006) suggestthat forgiveness is a universal concept across cultures. The authors found that despitereligious, cultural and linguistic differences, forgiveness patterns do not differsignificantly among US and Indian samples. This finding was explained by the possibleeffect of globalization on Indian culture.

Cultural differences in reframing a transgression (challenge primary appraisal)

Little is known about whether challenge appraisal (e.g. leaving behind worries andrumination about a transgression) may vary across cultures. Outside the marketingliterature, Bjorck et al. (2001) attest that Korean and Filipino-American studentsappraised stressors as more challenging than Euro-American students did. Thisfinding is explained by Chun et al. (2006) who argue that religiosity and spiritualityhave a greater influence on how people may assess an event in a more positive andpurposeful light (e.g. God has a special plan for me through this difficult experience).

Overall, the core concept of appraisal is that persons evaluate and interpret anencounter in terms of its importance, magnitude and significance to themselves in arelationship with their environment. In this vein, previous studies reported significantdifferences in ways whereby people assess an event, according to their cultural values.For example, it has been recognized that allocentrics see the environment as fixed and

themselves as changeable; while idiocentrics see themselves as stable and theenvironment as changeable (Wang et al., 2004).

Therefore, we can expect that in the primary appraisal stage allocentric customersmay reframe a transgressing service failure in a more positive way, than do idiocentriccustomers, as they are more flexible, and may have a greater willingness to adaptthemselves to the situation.

However, idiocentric customers may evaluate the transgressing encounter in anego-defensive way as they expect that their environment will change to fill their

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requirements, and thus will reframe the transgression in a less positive manner than doallocentric customers. From this P1a flows:

P1a. When faced with a transgressing service encounter, allocentric customers

assess the encounter more positively than do idiocentric customers.

Cultural differences in give-up blaming (challenge secondary appraisal)Literature on cross-cultural psychology has recognized that attribution process isimpacted by differences in cultural values (Betancourt et al., 1992; Fujimoto and Hartel,2004). For example, Kawanishi (1995) showed that compared to Euro-Americanstudents, Japanese ones were more likely to make attributions about a stressful eventto external chance factors. Likewise, give-up blame and fault finding (i.e. shifting ofblame to external forces) may also be influenced by culture; as such attempt is stronglyrelated to a lack of accountability and controllability as well as the temporal nature ofthe wrongdoing.

Cultural differences in accountability dimension. In contrast with people from

individualistic cultures, those from collectivistic ones rely more on external locus ofcontrol to an extent that they believe being at the mercy of powerful forces of luck orfate (Chun et al., 2006). In claiming so, one can argue that when appraising a stressfulencounter, allocentric customers will have a greater tendency to attribute theresponsibility of the wrongdoing to external forces (e.g. bad luck, circumstantial eventssuch as a bad weather) rather than to themselves or the wrongdoer, and therefore willhave a greater willingness to give-up blame and fault finding than do idiocentrics ones.

Cultural differences in stability and controllability dimensions . With respect to thestability dimension, Takaku et al. (2001) revealed that compared with independentpersons (Americans), interdependent ones (Japanese) are more likely to refer tothe stability of the wrongdoing in deciding to forgive an offender rather thanthe controllability of the wrongdoing; the less stable the injury, the more tendency to

forgive will be.In this light, one can argue that, the less stable the cause of a service failure over

time, the greater allocentric customers tendency to forgive will be. In contrast thecontrollability dimension seems to be the main trigger of give-up blaming foridiocentric customers. Hence, the following propositions are offered:

P1b. When give-up blame and fault finding, idiocentric customers give higherimportance to the controllability dimension over the accountability one and ata lesser extent the stability dimension.

P1c. When give-blame and fault finding, allocentric customers give higher score tothe stability dimension over the accountability one and at a lesser extent the

controllability dimension.P1. Challenging primary appraisal effects on the secondary appraisal is higher for

allocentric customers than idiocentric ones.

Positive and negative emotions across culturesCross cultural studies on emotions (Stephan et al., 1996) have showed that collectivisticcultures discourage the expression of negative emotions due to the disruption ofinterpersonal relations. While individualistic cultures encourage the expression of

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negative emotions that enhance in some way the individuals sense of distinctivenessand independence. However, positive emotions are expressed outwardly the same wayregardless of differences in cultural contexts in such way that they appears enjoyable,socially appropriate and reciprocated by both family and strangers.

With respect to persons with interdependent self-construal ( Japanese), Takaku et al.(2001) found that forgiveness is mainly driven by negative emotions; the less negativeemotional reaction experienced toward the offender, the more likely the injured part isto forgive the offender. However, regarding the independent self-construal person(American), both negative and positive emotional reactions were found to be predictorsof the forgiveness; the less negative emotional reaction, the more positive emotionalreaction, the more people will forgive the wrongdoer. From this P2a and P2b flow:

P2a. Negative emotions experienced by allocentric customers, are more predictiveof forgiveness than positive emotions.

P2b. Positive emotions experienced by idiocentric customers, are more predictiveof forgiveness than negative emotions.

In summarizing, one can argue that for persons with interdependent self-construalsforgiveness is mainly determined by the stability dimension and the negative emotionalreaction: the less stable the cause, the less negative the emotional reaction and the greaterthe propensity to forgive. However, for individuals with independent self-construals,forgiveness is shaped through the controllability dimension and/or negative emotionalreaction: the more uncontrollable the cause, the less negative the emotional reaction andthe greater the tendency to forgive. From this P2c, P2d, and P2flow:

P2c. The less stable the cause, the less negative the emotional reaction ofallocentric customers to a wrongdoing will be.

P2d. The more uncontrollable, the causes of the wrongdoing, the less negative theemotional reaction of idiocentric customers will be.

P2. The impact of challenging secondary appraisal on emotions is higher forallocentric customers than idiocentric ones.

Forgiveness coping across culturesWhen investigating the effect of differences in cultural values orientations, on copingstyles, Cross (1995) measured independent and interdependent self-construal in Asianand American graduate students and found that independence predicted the use ofdirect coping (or problem-focused coping) while interdependence did not. Furthermore,Hardie et al. (2006) noted that individuals from independent Western cultures preferproblem-focused coping, while people from interdependent Eastern cultures are said toprefer emotion-focused coping.

Accordingly, it is plausible to assume that, unlike allocentric customers, idiocentricones are more likely to adopt a problem-focused strategy rather than an emotionfocused strategy. In so claiming, it is fair to assume that in the forgiveness process,idiocentric customers may seek compromise and accommodation as an attempt tomanage the problem and to reduce its impact. Thus, they may discuss with theoffender firm what happened and decide to work together what to do next and mayseek some form of redress. In contrast, allocentric customers may seek avoidance when

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deciding to leave voluntarily the relationship. They may also vent emotionalcontainment as they feel confident to get over the hurt and express benevolence andgoodwill. Hence, the following propositions are offered:

P3a. In deciding to forgive, allocentric customers prefer to avoid or to leavevoluntarily a relationship with a service provider, rather than seeking acompromise or an accommodation.

P3b. In deciding to forgive, idiocentric customers seek a compromise or anaccommodation, rather than avoiding or leaving the relationship.

P3. The effects of emotions (negative/positive) on the willingness to forgive isstronger for allocentric customers than for idiocentric ones.

ConclusionsCustomer forgiveness behavior is an infancy area in need for more investigation.In fact, forgiveness is not yet fully understood as its triggers were mostly investigated

within a western culture context. The current paper provides extensive evidence on therole of culture in shaping customer forgiveness and suggests a conceptual frameworkbased on understanding cultural differences on the cognitive appraisal, experiencedemotions and coping patterns of forgiveness process.

Theoretical contributionsThere are notable differences in emotional mechanisms that shape forgiveness. Forexample, for persons with interdependent self-construal, reducing negative emotionshas showed to be the main driver of forgiveness rather than positive emotions arising.However, in case of persons with independent self-construal, it takes positive emotionsin addition to negative emotions reducing to achieve forgiveness. In this vein one canargue that in contrast with allocentric customers, absorbing customer anger may not

be sufficient in case of idiocentric customers to promote forgiveness as it must befollowed by positive emotions arising. Accordingly, handling customer emotionsrequires specific and thoughtful actions in order to be successful in achievingforgiveness.

Regarding coping behavior, independent persons are likely to prefer direct copingrather than indirect coping. This suggests that idiocentric customers are more likely toadopt problem solving strategies when they decide to forgive, so they may discuss withtheoffender firm what happened, and work with the service provider to move beyond theiranger, by seeking a compromise or accommodation, otherwise they will leave voluntarilythe relationship without offending the service provider. Conversely, allocentric customerstend to regulate their emotional responses to the environment by expressing benevolenceand goodwill as they feel confident that they can get over the hurt.

Managerial implicationsAlthough forgiveness exists in different cultures, the process leading to reconciliationis not universal. Thus, understanding cultural variability within styles of forgivenessis a prerequisite for service managers in restoring a weakened customer relationship,especially following a service failure.

For example, knowing that, in contrast with allocentric customers, idiocentric onesview themselves as stable and their environment as changeable, service managers

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should improve the perception of employees responsiveness when dealing with thesecustomers, especially in a context of interpersonal conflict. This may enhance theirwillingness to forgive a wrongdoing.

Moreover, acknowledging that to give-up blaming, idiocentric customers refer

primarily to the controllability of the wrongdoing, it will be more appropriate to focuson the lack of controllability when providing explanations and negotiating with thesecustomers. Conversely, when dealing with allocentric customers the negotiator shouldmainly stress on the instability of the wrongdoing.

In this light, we believe that training programs should incorporate simulations andplay roles exercises about interpersonal conflicts involving offended customers andsales persons with different cultural background. This may be helpful in identifyingearly patterns of forgiveness and in making contingency plans.

Likewise, in business-to-business context, managers should be mindful that ways ofapproaching and handling conflicts, to achieve forgiveness, may depend also onnegotiators cultural values orientations. More especially, local business with multiethnicmarkets as well as multinational firms that operates in foreign cultural systems should beaware about the effect of host culture on promoting forgiveness, to be more effective inmanaging interpersonal conflicts and to avoid reciprocity and escalation.

For instance, service managers should be sensitive to the fact that in deciding toforgive, allocentric negotiators refer primarily to normative (e.g. social rules and culturalnorms) and relationship motives (e.g. organizations harmony) and to a lesser extent to

justice motives (rights reestablishment). In such case, service managers should be awareabout the requirement of not shaming any part involved in the forgiveness process andthe need to save the group harmony along the negotiation process.

Further, as allocentrics and idiocentrics have different styles of coping behaviorswhen forgiving a wrongdoing; the former privilege emotional containment, expressingbenevolence and goodwill (emotion-focused coping), whereas the latter prefer looking

for accommodation and compromise, and working through the failure (problem-focused coping), managers efforts in resolving a conflict should be process-oriented forthe former and goal-oriented for the latter.

Overall, it is obvious that managers would have advantages to understanddifferences in cultural values orientations to adopt efficient strategies in conflictresolution.

Limitations and further researchAlbeit preliminary, thisresearch identifies some important research avenues thatcould bepursued to advance this work. Given that forgiveness is a dynamic, interactive process,individuals may move back and forwards between components rather than in a linearfashion (Strelan and Covic, 2006), the interplays between the model compartments should

be tested with different sequential orders in many cultural contexts.For instance, in contrast with the cognitive-emotive theory (Lazarus, 1991) arguing

that emotions mediate the link between cognitive appraisal and coping behaviors,some works (Ortony et al., 1988) suggest that the cognitive appraisal may co-occur withexperienced emotions, whereas other works (Zajonc and Markus, 1984) challenge theseviews and support the predominance of emotions over cognition. In this light it will besalient to test competing models, across cultural contexts that consider differentsequential order; this will enhance our understanding about the forgiveness process.

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Moreover, while coping behavior is shaped by both emotions and appraisals, copingin turn can change expressed emotions (Nyer, 1997), for example when customer optsfor a direct coping in forgiveness, following accommodation or compromise process, hemay experience happiness and joy as this task contributes to his well-being.

Likewise, additional research is needed to understand the interplay betweenprimary and secondary appraisals in shaping coping behavior. Indeed, an event maybe initially assessed as challenge in a primary appraisal and customer may feelconfident to recover from the negative emotions caused by severe injury, however if theindividual feel helpless to successfully cope with the event, the encounter might berevaluated as an occurred harm in a secondary evaluation, creating a succession ofchanging emotions and appraisals. This is what Lazarus and Folkman (1984, p. 38)called reappraisal which refers to an appraisal that follows an earlier appraisal in thesame encounter and modifies it.

As customer forgiveness is related to time (Chung and Beverland, 2005), furtherresearch should use longitudinal studies to test the proposed model. Indeed, compared

to cross sectional studies, longitudinal ones are recognized to provide moreunderstanding about the dynamic of forgiveness process and causal links changeover time (Maxham and Netemeyer, 2002).

Finally, as recent literature on forgiveness suggests that forgiving may depend onsituational factors such as low versus high control stressors (Maltby et al., 2007) as wellas the offender characteristics such as power distance and relationship intimacy(Aquino et al., 2006) and gender (Brown and Phillips, 2005), it will be salient toinvestigate these differences in both cultures for each model path.

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Further reading

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Corresponding authorHaithem Zourrig can be contacted at: [email protected]

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