Empirical exploration of the service provider’s response process

Abstract

In the previous chapters, theories from various fields have been applied to develop a conceptual model of a service provider’s behavior in critical service encounter situations. No empirical research has been undertaken to study this topic, and little is known about the service provider’s response process in actual disconfirmation situations. Therefore, a primarily exploratory approach with the objective to understand and describe the service provider’s response process as well as to test the basic relationships of the model’s constructs has been chosen. According to Churchill (1991), an exploratory approach is appropriate for the purposes of:

• increasing familiarity with phenomena,

• clarifying concepts, and

• developing hypotheses.