Title of Paper

How does the host’s interaction style affect Airbnb guests’ response to service failure and recovery?

Author Bios (50 Words for each Author)

Lu Lu is an Assistant Professor of Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Temple University. Her research interests include consumer behavior in food and beverage decision-making and restaurant choice, destination marketing, and complaining behavior.

Ruiying (Raine) Cai is a Ph.D. Candidate in Business Administration at Washington State University. Her research interests include service experience, the role of other customers, service recovery, customers’ complaining behaviors, and subjective well-being. She has published several papers in journals such as Tourism Management.

Ceridwyn King is an Associate Professor in the School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management at Temple University. Ceridwyn’s research can be found in leading international journals such as the Journal of Travel Research, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, and more.

Abstract (150 Words)

This study proposes a research model that investigates how interaction styles of the Airbnb host can shape consumers’ evaluative judgment (e.g., satisfaction and switch intentions) upon service failure and recovery via the intervening role of trust. The results from two sequential experiments suggest that a personal interaction style (vs. professional style) yields higher trust in the host (Experiment 1). When the service failure occurs, the host’s recovery style (e.g., personal vs. professional) does not interfere with the main effect of initial interactions on the recovery efficacy. Customers exposed to an initial personal (vs. professional) interaction with the host report greater satisfaction and lower switch intentions, regardless of recovery styles (Experiment 2). Serial mediation analyses suggest that trust fully accounts for the differential impacts of interaction styles on post service recovery outcomes. The findings have important implications for sharing service platforms (e.g., Airbnb).

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How does the host’s interaction style affect Airbnb guests’ response to service failure and recovery?

This study proposes a research model that investigates how interaction styles of the Airbnb host can shape consumers’ evaluative judgment (e.g., satisfaction and switch intentions) upon service failure and recovery via the intervening role of trust. The results from two sequential experiments suggest that a personal interaction style (vs. professional style) yields higher trust in the host (Experiment 1). When the service failure occurs, the host’s recovery style (e.g., personal vs. professional) does not interfere with the main effect of initial interactions on the recovery efficacy. Customers exposed to an initial personal (vs. professional) interaction with the host report greater satisfaction and lower switch intentions, regardless of recovery styles (Experiment 2). Serial mediation analyses suggest that trust fully accounts for the differential impacts of interaction styles on post service recovery outcomes. The findings have important implications for sharing service platforms (e.g., Airbnb).