When service failures trigger customer deviance in food-service firms: the roles of failure severity, customer anger, and self-control

Abstract

Drawing on General Strain Theory, this study examines how service failures escalate into customer deviant behavior in food-service firms. It investigates the effects of service type, categorized as high-contact versus low-contact encounters, and failure type, categorized as process versus outcome failures, on perceived failure severity, customer anger, and customer deviant behavior. It also examines the mediating roles of perceived failure severity and customer anger, as well as the moderating role of self-control. A scenario-based experiment using a 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial design was conducted with 240 participants assigned to four service failure conditions. The data were analyzed using MANOVA and Hayes’ PROCESS macro. The findings show that service type significantly affects perceived failure severity, customer anger, and customer deviant behavior, while failure type significantly affects perceived failure severity and customer deviant behavior but not customer anger. The interaction between service type and failure type significantly affects only customer deviant behavior. Perceived failure severity mediates the effects of service type and failure type on customer deviant behavior, whereas customer anger does not. Self-control moderates the relationship between customer anger and customer deviant behavior. These findings extend General Strain Theory by showing that customer deviant behavior in food-service failures is driven primarily by perceived severity, while self-control reduces anger-driven deviant responses.