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Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3025-6002
AccessType
Campus-Only Access for Five (5) Years
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Management
Year Degree Awarded
2020
Month Degree Awarded
May
First Advisor
Melissa Baker
Second Advisor
Emily Ma
Third Advisor
Lisa Keller
Subject Categories
Hospitality Administration and Management | Marketing
Abstract
This study aims to answer the question of how service firms’ practice of unearned preferential treatment, where non-loyalty-based free upgrades are given at random, may be negatively affecting the firm’s loyalty program customers who have earned such preferential treatments through past efforts (e.g., time, money, or repeat purchase) and to identify potential underlying psychological mechanisms. To do so, this dissertation consists of three experiment studies that examine how loyalty program customer’s witnessing unearned preferential treatment towards non-program customers in the social servicescape influences their perceptions and subsequent behaviors, based on psychological contract theory as a fundamental theoretical background.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/17164006
Recommended Citation
Kim, Young Sun, "Isn’t it only for me? Unearned Preferential Treatment and Loyalty Program Customer Responses: A perspective of psychological contract violation" (2020). Doctoral Dissertations. 1913.
https://doi.org/10.7275/17164006
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1913