The influence of service category, consumers' narcissism and processing mode on service customization consumption
Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics
ISSN: 1355-5855
Article publication date: 15 December 2020
Issue publication date: 30 June 2021
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impacts of service category (utilitarian vs hedonic) on chosen degree of uniqueness (CDOU) and consumers' willingness to pay more (WTPM), as well as the moderating roles of consumers' narcissism trait (high vs low) and processing mode (rational vs experiential) on the relationship between service category and CDOU.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducts one online experiment-questionnaire study and one between-subject lab experiment to test the hypotheses.
Findings
This study finds that consumers are more likely to choose unique choices in hedonic service customization. Consumers' CDOU has a positive effect on their attitudes toward WTPM. In addition, consumers' processing mode moderates the relationship between service category and CDOU.
Practical implications
The findings provide new insights into better understanding the factors affecting the choice of service customization and have significant practical implications. First, consumers' different desire for uniqueness of different service should not be neglected when examining the values of service customization. Second, high-level CDOU is quite prevalent for hedonic (vs utilitarian) service customization, especially for consumers with experiential processing mode.
Originality/value
While previous studies state “need for uniqueness” as a key characteristic of product customization in general, we extend it to intangible service customization and connect it with consumers' WTPM. In addition, the moderating role of individual trait and decision-making processing mode is also checked. Thus, the findings refine the existing understanding of the relationship between uniqueness and service customization.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the helpful comments from Professor Ian Phau and the two anonymous reviewers. This work was partially supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFB1402500), Taishan Scholar Project of Shandong Province (tsqn201909154) and Science and Technology Program for Innovation of Shandong Universities (2020RWG003).Conflict of interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
Citation
Wang, C., Wang, Q., Feng, T. and Zhang, Y. (2021), "The influence of service category, consumers' narcissism and processing mode on service customization consumption", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 33 No. 7, pp. 1556-1577. https://doi.org/10.1108/APJML-04-2020-0263
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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