Beware the Fury of the Digital Age Consumer:
Online Consumer Revenge: A Cognitive Appraisal Perspective

Abstract

Online consumer revenge is costing companies millions of dollars annually. Yet, a limited number of studies have investigated the factors that influence online consumer revenge and the degree to which they carry on across cultural boundaries. A serious gap was noticed concerning the forms, triggers, and process of consumer revenge in the online context. Additionally, it was noticed that previous theoretical models of consumer revenge go directly from the desire for revenge state to the actual revenge state without explaining the cognitive process the consumer goes through when evaluating the decision whether or not to commit revenge. To address these research gaps, a mixed method approach was applied. A qualitative approach was employed first to explore this behaviour. Afterwards, a scenario based survey was used in order to examine and test the casual relationships between the variables identified in the first study on a larger sample from Jordan and Britain.
Overall, the findings of this thesis have proven for the first time the secondary appraisal state consumers go through when evaluating their online revenge coping options. In this state, consumers were found to evaluate the reach of their actions, the risk involved, and the ability to perform the online revenge behaviour. Additionally, this thesis found that the British participants cognitively evaluate their online revenge options more extensively when compared to the Jordanian participants. The findings of this thesis also identify a new set of triggers for online consumer revenge including the type (process/outcome) and the severity of the service failure. This finding shifts away from the traditional fairness violations view of the triggers of consumer revenge. Moreover, the findings of this thesis establishes the role of the national culture in influencing online revenge as demonstrated by the difference in the harm appraisals, negative emotions, and the desires for revenge between the English and Jordanian participants.