An Exploratory Study of the Formation and Impact of Electronic Service Failures

Bitner (1990) Attribution Theory and Expectation Disconfirmation Theory Offline Service Failure Unidimensional Failure Construct Dissatisfaction Field experimental study involving 145 participants respectively • Consumers are likely to be dissatisfied when they deem that the service provider exercise greater control over the cause of a service failure, and when the failure was recurring vis-à-vis a rare event • Consumers tend to attribute service failure to a lack of control on the part of the service provider when an external explanation is offered for the failure • Consumers tend to view service failure as a rare event when the failure occurred in an organized service environment