The moderating role of social distance in the effect of emotions on forgiveness, word of mouth and repatronage intention: An application for third-party customers

This thesis attempts to examine the effects of third-party customers' positive and negative emotions on negative word of mouth and repatronage intention through customer forgiveness depending on how socially close or distant they are from victimized customers in the service recovery process. Research hypotheses are tested using a scenario-based experimental design with 2 (social distance to third-party customer: close/distant) x 2 (service recovery: yes/no). In this direction, four scenarios are created for the hotel industry and a total of 576 participants, 144 in each scenario, are included in the study. The collected data are analyzed with SPSS and SmartPLS 4.0 programs. Independent sample t-tests and moderated-mediation analysis are used to test hypothesis. The results show that the positive and negative emotions felt by third-party customers during the service failure and recovery process differ based on social distance. Accordingly, it is determined that the positive and negative emotions of socially distant third-party customers, varying according to their recovery status, are at a higher level compared to socially close third-party customers. In addition, it concludes that positive emotions affect customer forgiveness positively, while negative emotions affect customer forgiveness negatively. On the other hand, results show that the effects of positive emotions on customer forgiveness differ depending on the social distance levels of the third-party customer. Furthermore, customer forgiveness have a mediating effect in the relationship of positive emotions on repatronage intention. Finally, in the moderated-mediation analysis, findings indicate that social distance has a moderator effect only on the relationship between positive emotions and customer forgiveness. This thesis, unlike previous studies, contributes to the literature by examining the differences in the reactions of third-party customers in service failure and recovery process depending on how socially close or distant they are from victimized customers.