The Impact of Corporate Product Harm Crisis Response on Consumer Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction under Ambiguous Situation: The Mediating Role of Psychological Contract

Corporate responses via various media might be the only factor that firms can resort to immediately after product harm crises. For that reason, incorporating social exchange theory, needs hierarchy theory and two-factor theory etc., this research develops the conceptual framework that suggests the impact of product harm crisis response on consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction and the mediating role of psychological contract. The research utilizes experimental method and fictitious beverage and automobile product harm crises are created as imaginary scenario. Regression analysis etc. is used to analyze data. The results of study one indicate functional response negatively affects consumer dissatisfaction, and functional response combining with emotional response positively affects satisfaction and negatively affects dissatisfaction. The results also indicate that functional response doesn't affect satisfaction and purely emotional response affects neither transactional contract nor relational contract. The results of study two indicate psychological contract fully mediates the impact of product harm crisis response on consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The results also indicate functional response positively affects transactional contract and doesn't affect relational contract. Transactional contract negatively affects dissatisfaction, but doesn't affect satisfaction. At the same time, functional response combining with emotional response positively affects both relational contract and transactional contract. Relational contract is found to affect satisfaction positively, but not to affect dissatisfaction. Furthermore, purely emotional response affects neither transactional contract nor relational contract. The findings of this research further enrich the literature of product harm crises and also provide guidelines for management to deal with product harm crises.