Roles of Equity on Consumer Emotion and Satisfaction

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to realize that the customer satisfaction process should be considered from the viewpoint of equity theory, and the emotion and satisfaction of consumers are varied by the aroused recognition of equity. In particular, it proposes that the relation between equity recognition and emotion/satisfaction depends on the personality of an individual, which can predict that the characteristics and difference of personalities of an individual can play the regulative role in the difference of satisfaction and emotion in accordance with equity, considering that the equity issue can occur in a human-to-human relation. In particular, among the various personal characteristic factors, this research focuses on extroversion and neuroticism because these two characteristic factors, among the sub factors of personality, are considered to largely influence the relation with others. Design/methodology/approach: For this research, an experiment was performed for 150 subjects and each subject was not exposed to the different scenario between each subjects design. Each of the subjects was exposed to one of 3 scenarios regarding equity. They were required to consider themselves as the person in the scenario after reading and evaluating the scenario. Subsequent to reading the scenario, the subjects were asked to answer the questionnaire regarding sorriness, emotion(negative emotion, positive emotion), and satisfaction. Results/findings: The results of this study are as follows. First, extraversion has a moderating role between equity and consumers responses(guilt, affects, and satisfaction). Second, the neuroticism's moderating effects were not founded between equity and consumers responses(affect and satisfaction). These results imply that the seller should treat consumers more consciously, especially high extraversion consumers. Future work/research: It is necessary to include additional personality factors. Further, there are various inequity causing factors aside from price. Hence, various factors should be considered, such as the waiting time or friendliness of the seller. Originality/value: This research is different from previous researches in verifying the moderating role of personality for the effect of equity, in the procedure of formation and variation of customer satisfaction.