The effect of frontline employees' personal self-disclosure on consumers' encounter experience

Pernille K. Andersson*, Anders Gustafsson, Per Kristensson, Erik Wästlund

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how frontline employee self-disclosure influences consumers' reciprocal behavior. To investigate the effects of frontline employee self-disclosure, two experiments were conducted with a total sample of 475 participants. The results show that when frontline employees disclose personal information in one-time encounters, they are perceived as less competent and more superficial. The results also show that self-disclosure negatively affects reciprocal behavior, but that this is mediated through liking, competence, superficiality, and satisfaction. These findings suggest that it is not always beneficial for employees to use self-disclosure as a strategy for garnering a consumer's trust or satisfaction, which counters previous research that suggest that disclosure of personal information is a good way to positively influence consumers in the retail environment.

Original languageEnglish
Peer-reviewed scientific journalJournal of Retailing and Consumer Services
Volume30
Pages (from-to)40-49
Number of pages10
ISSN0969-6989
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.05.2016
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article - refereed

Keywords

  • 512 Business and Management
  • Encounter experience
  • Frontline employee
  • Reciprocal behavior
  • Satisfaction
  • Self-disclosure
  • Social impression

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