| The U.S. retail industry makes billions of dollars a year by engaging customers to participate in their business (design, production, delivery of goods and services); however, scholarship that focuses on the psychological implications of such participatory actions by customers is limited. This dissertation investigates consumer's negative emotional reaction which may arise subsequent to a participatory act. More specifically, the role of negative emotional reaction to participation in generating potent upward counterfactuals and its subsequent influence on perceived ownership towards the product and negative word-of-mouth intentions towards the firm is examined. Furthermore, the role of interactional justice in participation, procedural justice in participation and self-assessment of participation as antecedents to negative emotional reaction to participation, the mediating role of product and process satisfaction and the moderating role of opportunity to return the product on the aforementioned are discussed. |
