Is Customer Orientation Really Sweethearting?The Effect Of Customer Oriented Deviance (COD) On Customers' Brand Attitude

In the service economy,front-line employees(FLEs),as the key contacting point between business and customers,have been regarded by the enterprises as an important resource for gaining advantages in the competition for a long time.Most service companies spread their brand image through FLEs.However,the characteristics that the service industry is difficult to standardize and the excessive discretion of employees make service enterprises appear all kinds of deviant behaviors.More specifically,one of these deviant behaviors would make the companies confused,that is,"customer oriented deviance(COD)." On the one hand,this behavior is similar to other deviant behaviors and wastes excessive resources.In the short run,it will have a very negative impact on the companies.On the other hand,it definitely follows the golden rule of the academia-"customer orientation",help the companies retain customers,and even spread a positive brand image to the customers.Based on the theory of positive bias,pro-social behavior theory,actor-observer bias theory,accessibility-diagnosticity framework,this paper provides a comprehensive explanation of the double-edged sword effect of customer-oriented deviance on the brand image of companies,in order to make contributions to the current research.This study is divided into two parts,namely qualitative research(depth interview)and quantitative research(experiments).In the qualitative research,depth interview is used to explore the industries in which COD may occur,what the characteristics of COD in customer perspectives are,and the psychological mechanism of customers facing COD in the real life.In the quantitative research,we designed three experiments to conduct a comprehensive study on the research questions:(1)Study 1 focuses on the different influences of COD on brand attitude were discussed under different customer roles;(2)In study 2,we discussed the mechanism and the boundary conditions for the effect of COD on acting customers' brand attitude;(3)Study 3 discusses the mediation and the moderation for the effect of COD on observing customers' brand attitude.Then the data were collected through Mturk experimental platform,and SPSS21.0 was used to analyze the data with many methods such as ANOVA,t-test and so on.The results support all the hypotheses.The conclusions are as follows:(1)COD has a more positive impact on the brand attitude of acting customers than that of observing customers;(2)Perceived superiority mediates the effect of COD on acting customers' brand attitude and the initiative of engaging COD moderates this positive effect;(3)Perceived integrity of the company mediates the effect of COD on observing customers' brand attitude and the strength of the relationship between the acting customer and the observing customer moderates this negative effect.The conclusion of this paper proves that the brand attitude of customers under COD will change according to different customer roles.Overall,COD is still a deviant behavior.This paper explores another negative impact path of this behavior theoretically,and also finds the differentiation mechanism of different influences,enriching the existing research.This paper also gives some management enlightenments to those companies in dilemma,that the companies should curb the occurrence of this behavior through the service standardization and,at the same time,soften employee assessment system to promote the healthy development of companies.