Online complaining: Understanding the adoption process and the role of individual and situational characteristics

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, develop and test a conceptual model to understand customers’ intention to adopt online complaining. Second, to assess two competing perspectives regarding elaboration likelihood for the moderating impact of individual differences. Design/methodology/approach – A scenario‐based survey was used to assess respondents’ beliefs, attitude, and usage intentions toward online complaining. Furthermore, individual and situational characteristics were assessed. The data were analyzed using partial least squares path modeling. Findings – Attitude toward online complaining is a function of both process and outcome beliefs. It is also influenced by individual characteristics, but remains unaffected by situational characteristics. In contrast, usage intentions are influenced by situational characteristics, but by personal differences. For the moderating impact of affect‐based personality characteristics, the often used cognitive effort perspective to elaboration likelihood is not supported. Rather the consumption value perspective applies for these variables. Research limitations/implications – The use of a single setting, as well as the use of scenarios, may negatively impact external validity. Future research is needed to further explain the contradictory perspectives regarding information processing. Practical implications – The results provide insight into determinants of customer online complaining. This opens up new possibilities to increase the number of complainants in case of service failures and for firms to take corrective action. Originality/value – To the authors’ best knowledge, this is a first empirical study aimed at understanding what drives online customer complaining.