When does highlighting effort or talent in fitness service providers' performance lead to customer compliance? The role of customers' implicit mindset

PurposeFitness service organizations often promote the personal training service by attributing competent features, qualifications, or/and service provision of fitness service providers to efforts or talents. This study aims to investigate whether and when the promotional attribution of fitness service providers' competent features, qualifications, or/and service provision contributes to customers' compliance with service instructions.Design/methodology/approachThe authors developed the experimental stimuli of performance attribution promotion (i.e. effort attribution and talent attribution) and validated them via a pretest (N = 400). Utilizing the validated stimuli, the authors conducted an experiment (N = 400) employing a single-factor (performance attribution promotion: effort vs talent) between-subject design. The authors performed partial least squares structural modeling (PLS-SEM) to test our hypotheses.FindingsThe results revealed the interaction effect of performance attribution promotion and customers' implicit mindset on customer participation expectation. Specifically, when customers were high in implicit mindset (i.e. incremental-minded), attributing competent features, qualifications, or/and service provision of fitness service providers to effort (vs talent) increased customer participation expectation. Yet, when customers were low in implicit mindset (i.e. entity-minded), such an effect did not occur. Further, the authors identified customers' intention to comply with service instructions as a downstream consequence of the aforementioned interaction effect.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper is twofold. It enriches the performance attribution literature by finding its new consequences and boundary condition. Moreover, the findings aid fitness service practitioners in developing strategies for eliciting customers' compliance with service instruction through performance attribution promotion.