Affiliative or self-defeating? Exploring the effect of humor types on customer forgiveness in the context of AI agents’ service failure

IF 10.5 1区管理学 Q1 BUSINESS

Journal of Business Research Pub Date : 2025-04-10 DOI:10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115381

Yuguang Xie , Peiyu Zhou , Changyong Liang , Shuping Zhao , Wenxing Lu

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Service failures of conversational artificial intelligence (AI) agents are common in real-world interactions. How to mitigate the negative impact of AI agent failures and improve customer forgiveness is imperative. In this study, we construct a model of the influence mechanism of affiliative and self-defeating humor types on customer forgiveness. Through four experimental studies (N = 1919), we find that AI agents expressing humor can effectively enhance customer forgiveness during service failures, with self-defeating humor having the best effect. Moreover, affiliative and self-defeating humor types can improve customers’ positive emotion and allow them to experience relief. The positive impact of AI agents expressing humor persisted in the low-severity failure condition but disappeared in the medium- and high-severity conditions. These findings extend the existing literature on AI agents expressing humor and guide online service providers to mitigate and minimize the negative effects of AI agents’ service failures.

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来源期刊

Journal of Business Research BUSINESS-

CiteScore

20.30

自引率

10.60%

发文量

956

期刊介绍： The Journal of Business Research aims to publish research that is rigorous, relevant, and potentially impactful. It examines a wide variety of business decision contexts, processes, and activities, developing insights that are meaningful for theory, practice, and/or society at large. The research is intended to generate meaningful debates in academia and practice, that are thought provoking and have the potential to make a difference to conceptual thinking and/or practice. The Journal is published for a broad range of stakeholders, including scholars, researchers, executives, and policy makers. It aids the application of its research to practical situations and theoretical findings to the reality of the business world as well as to society. The Journal is abstracted and indexed in several databases, including Social Sciences Citation Index, ANBAR, Current Contents, Management Contents, Management Literature in Brief, PsycINFO, Information Service, RePEc, Academic Journal Guide, ABI/Inform, INSPEC, etc.