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The Dark Side of Customer Participation: The Antecedents of Customer
Participation Stress
While literature often points out the positive effects of customer participation, we shed
light on the negative side of customer participation by introducing customer
participation stress (CPS) as a new construct to literature. Therefor we examine the
factors determining the perception of stress by applying the job demands-resources
model to the customer context. With regard to customers as partial employees we both
adopt variables from the original model and introduce new customer specific variables.
Additionally we consider potential negative outcomes of CPS and therefor examine its
influence on customer participation behavior. Our results show that CPS is positively
affected by cognitive demands and can be reduced by social factors. We also found that
CPS negatively affects customer participation behavior. We conclude, that managers
should focus on positive social aspects of the employee-customer relationship to avoid
negative outcomes of customer participation.
Keywords: customer participation, participation stress, customer relationship
Track: Service Marketing
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1. Relevance of the Phenomenon Being Studied
Most studies stress the positive outcomes of customer participation for both customers and
firms. To the best of our knowledge, few studies acknowledge that coproduction also might
have downsides for customers. Taking the role of a partial employee (Bitner, Faranda, Hubbert,
and Zeithaml, 1997), customers might face strains during co-production as well as employees
do during their daily business, particularly in complex services in which customers must make
significant decisions and often lack the necessary expertise to participate successfully (Hilgert,
Jeanne, and Sondra, 2003; Lusardi & Mitchell, 2007; Mayeaux et al., 1996). Thus, participation
demands may overtax customers’ participation abilities, which we expect to result in
customer participation stress. We develop and test a conceptual framework on the antecedents
and consequences of customer participation stress. In particular we build on the job demandsresources (JD-R) model on the driver side and study the impact on customer participation and
felt responsibility on the outcome side.
2. Potential Contributions to the Field
This study aims to make a three-fold contribution to customer participation theory in general
and to research of negative aspects of customer participation in particular. First, we introduce
customer participation stress as a new construct to participation literature and examine which
factors determine the perception of stress. Second, we show that the JD-R model of
Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, and Schaufeli (2001) is applicable to a customer participation
context. We both adopt variables from the original model in our context, but also introduce
new customer specific variables to extend the model in a context-specific way. Third, we
examine the influence of customer participation stress on customer participation behavior and
customers’ felt responsibility. Thus, the findings of our study not only contribute to current
research but also offer valuable insights for practitioners to improve the service process itself.
Practitioners thereby can avoid overtaxing their customers and provide relevant support in the
service process.
Thus, we address the following research questions:
1. Which demands and resources do customers face during customer participation?
2. Do customers experience participation stress during the service production process,
and if so, to what extent does it influence their participation behavior and felt
responsibility for service outcomes?
3. Theoretical Foundations
We draw on a framework based on the JD-R model of burnout (Demerouti et al., 2001). The
model assumes that demands and resources are negatively related because demands may
preclude the effectiveness of resources (Bakker, Demerouti, and Schaufeli, 2003; Demerouti et
al., 2001). The JD-R model has shown that job demands are primarily related to exhaustion
components of burnout and that a lack of resources is primarily related to disengagement
(Demerouti et al., 2001). Particularly in complex professional services, customers become
partial employees (Mills & Morris, 1986) and active co-creators of value: For example,
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clients seeking legal advice need to disclose all relevant information and decide together with
their lawyer on the most effective legal strategy. Financial services customers need to provide
information to their financial advisor and understand as well as distinguish different products
(Auh, Bell, McLeod, and Shih, 2007). In this context, we expect that customer demands like role
overload, high cognitive demands and time pressure come up against customer resources like
expertise, cognitive and social support by the service employee. A mismatch between
demands and resources might cause stress and this in turn decreases customer participation
and felt responsibility for the service outcome.
4. Research Context and Conceptual Framework
Financial services provide a suitable context for our study, because financial products are
highly complex and difficult to grasp, especially for financially unsophisticated people
(Crosby, Kenneth, and Cowles, 1990; Van Rooij, Lusardi, and Alessie, 2011). Yet, structural
reforms to social security and retirement provisions continue to shift more responsibility from
the service provider to individual customers. Thus, we expect customer participation stress
among people who have to make significant decisions in financial services. Building on the
JD-R model to explore the emergence of customer participation stress we assume:
Job demands such as workload or role conflicts require physical or psychological effort by the
customer as a partial employee (Demerouti et al., 2001; Crawford, LePine, and Rich, 2010).
Facing customer challenges during the service process we identify five relevant demands
which we adapt to our context, i.e. role overload, disliked employee, cognitive demands,
perceived partial employee status, and time-pressure.
H1: Customer demands, i.e. a) role overload, b) cognitive demands, c) perceived partial
employee status, d) time-pressure, e) disliked employee increase customer participation
stress.
According to the JD-R model demands can be balanced by job resources like supervisor
support or skills of the employee (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Adapted to our research context
we investigate cognitive and social employee support, customer expertise, and behavioral
expertise as relevant customer resources.
H2: Customer resources, i.e. a) cognitive employee support, b) social employee support, c)
customer expertise, d) behavioral expertise, decrease customer participation stress.
As stress is a negative psychological state, in which customers are overstrained by
participation demands, we expect a negative impact on participation behavior.
H3: Customer participation stress has a negative impact on customer participation
behavior.
In accordance with self- enhancement theory (Dunn & Dahl, 2012) self-threat relates
positively to self-serving biases, which help people protecting their self-concepts. Customers
who experience high levels of participation stress, associated with the danger of negative
service outcomes, might protect their self-concept by denying responsibility for the service
outcome.
H4: Customer participation stress has a negative impact on customers’ felt responsibility
for service outcomes.
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Relying on job characteristics theory (Hackman & Oldham, 1976) employees’ felt
responsibility for output increases their extra-role (Pearce & Gregersen, 1991) and proactive
behavior (Fuller, Marler, and Hester, 2006). Thus, we believe that customers’ felt responsibility
might influence their participation behavior as well.
H5: Customers’ felt responsibility has a positive impact on customer participation behavior.
5. Methodology and Findings
In order to test our hypotheses, we sample from the population of customers who had used
an investment advisory service within the last 6 month. The sample (n=518) contains 254
customers with an investment advisory service within the last 1-3 month and 264 customers
with an investment advisory service within the last 4-6 month by now.
We used structural equation modelling to test our hypotheses with maximum likelihood
parameter estimation. First estimations predominantly support H1. We proposed a positive
effect of role overload, cognitive demands, perceived partial employee status, time-pressure
and disliked employee on customer participation stress. Role overload (β = .461, p < .001),
cognitive demands (β = .247, p < .001), time pressure (β = .323, p < .001) and disliked
employee (β = .311, p < .001) positively affect customer participation stress. The effect of
perceived partial employee status (β = .037, n.s.) is not significant but we found a trend in the
expected direction. We expected a negative effect of customers’ resources on customer
participation stress in H2. We found evidence for this hypothesis only for social support (β =.11, p < .05) and behavioral expertise (β =-.068, p < .05). However, we found an unexpected
negative effect of cognitive support on participation stress (β = .096, p < .01) and a nonsignificant effect of customer expertise (β =-.048, n.s.). We predicted that customer
participation stress has a negative impact on customer participation behavior (H3) as well as
on customers’ felt responsibility for service outcomes (H4). Both effects were not significant
(β =-.055, n.s., β =.012, n.s.). However, we can confirm H5 as we found that customers’ felt
responsibility positively affects customer participation behavior (β = .446, p < .001).
By the date of the conference we will be able to present our final model relying on an
intended sample size of 550 customers.
6. Conclusion
The objective of this research was to adapt the JD-R model to a customer context and thus
explain customer participation stress during service production. First results have shown that
customer participation stress is positively affected by cognitive factors (e.g., cognitive
demands, cognitive support) and can be reduced by social factors like social support. We also
found evidence for the hypothesis that customer participation stress negatively affects
customer participation behavior, which makes it a relevant aspect in the considerations of
managers and researchers as well.
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