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Online service failure: Online service

failure
antecedents, moderators
and consequences
Mohd Adil 797
Department of Management Studies, National Institute of Technology Hamirpur,
Hamirpur, India Received 19 January 2022
Revised 18 June 2022
Mohd Sadiq 30 July 2022
Accepted 4 September 2022
Department of Marketing, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Charles Jebarajakirthy and Haroon Iqbal Maseeh
Department of Marketing, Griffith Business School, Griffith University,
Gold Coast Campus, Southport, Australia
Deepak Sangroya
Jindal Global Business School, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India, and
Kumkum Bharti
Department of Marketing, Indian Institute of Management Kashipur,
Kashipur, India

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to present a systematic review of the online service failure (OSF)
literature and conduct an exhaustive analysis of academic research on this emerging research area.
Design/methodology/approach – The current study has adopted a structured systematic literature review
approach to synthesize and assess the OSF literature. Further, the study uses the Theory-Context-
Characteristics-Methodology (TCCM) framework to propose future research directions in the OSF domain.
Findings – This systematic review shows that OSF research is still developing and remains mainly
incoherent. Further, the study develops a conceptual framework integrating the frequently reported
antecedents, mediators, moderator and consequences in the extant literature. This review also synthesizes the
theoretical perspectives adopted for this domain.
Research limitations/implications – The study followed specific inclusion and exclusion criteria to
shortlist articles. Further, articles published only in the English language were considered. Hence, the findings
of this review cannot be generalized to all OSF literature.
Practical implications – This systematic review has classified antecedents into customers’ and service
providers’ roles which will enable online service providers to understand all sets of factors driving OSF. It also
synthesizes and presents service recovery strategies and emphasizes the role of online customer support to
fix OSF.
Originality/value – The OSF literature is still developing and remains highly incoherent, suggesting that a
synthesized review is needed. This study has systematically reviewed and synthesized the OSF literature to
study its development over time and proposes a framework which provides a comprehensive understanding
of OSF.
Keywords Online service failure, Systematic literature review, SLR, Lexicometric analysis, TCCM framework
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Journal of Service Theory and
Advancements in information and communication technology and the proliferation of mobile Practice
phones have brought revolution across the world, resulting in remarkable growth in Vol. 32 No. 6, 2022
pp. 797-842
electronic commerce (e-commerce) (Jebarajakirthy and Shankar, 2021). The vast expansion of © Emerald Publishing Limited
2055-6225
e-commerce during the last few decades has significantly impacted the global service DOI 10.1108/JSTP-01-2022-0019
JSTP landscape (Islam et al., 2021). With the advent of technology, businesses started offering their
32,6 services through an online mode, known as online services (Azemi et al., 2019). Online services
help businesses serve a larger customer base (Singh and Crisafulli, 2016). As such, global
e-retailing sales are expected to reach USD6.4 trillion by 2024 from USD3.35 trillion in 2019
(Statista, 2021a). Similarly, online banking enables customers to undertake convenient
banking transactions (Adil et al., 2013a; Sadiq et al., 2019), and as a result, a larger customer
base opts for e-transactions. For example, the total value of the global online banking market
798 is estimated to reach USD10.27 billion by 2027 from USD3.95 billion in 2019 (Allied Market
Research, 2020). Further, tourism industry has also been transformed by technological
innovations such as AI-chatbots (Rafiq et al., 2022) and travel aggregators (Dogra and Adil,
2022). Travel aggregators enable customers to purchase travel products online (Dogra et al.,
2022a), thereby playing an instrumental role in increasing the sales of tourism products
(Sadiq and Adil, 2021). For example, according to an estimate, 72% of tourism products will
be sold online by 2025 (Sadiq et al., 2022), resulting in an estimated global market size of USD
983.00 billion by 2027 (Statista, 2021b; Dogra et al., 2022a).
The above facts and figures indicate an enormous growth of online services in recent
years. Despite this huge growth, the services are challenged by online service failures (OSFs)
(Zhao et al., 2014). OSFs can be defined as “gaps between perceived and expected levels of
service offered online” (Lin et al., 2011, p. 512). OSFs occur when an organization fails to meet
customers’ expectations of online services (Haz
ee et al., 2017).
OSF has similar consequences to generic service failure, i.e. offline service failure
(Wang and Zhang, 2018). The literature suggests that service failure leads to several
negative consequences, such as customer dissatisfaction, negative word of mouth and
customer switching behavior (see: Fan et al., 2020; Holloway et al., 2005; Hess et al., 2003).
However, OSFs have a stronger negative impact than offline service failures because
online services are provided to a larger customer base (Ailawadi and Farris, 2017; Singh
and Crisafulli, 2016). Further, most online service providers enable customers to lodge
their complaints using online platforms with minimum effort so these platforms pave the
way for customers to spread messages of service failures via online reviews and social
media posts (Singh and Crisafulli, 2016; Azemi et al., 2019). Furthermore, in the online
service context, customers can easily switch from one service provider to another
following a service failure because they can easily look for alternative online service
providers (Manes and Tchetchik, 2018). Overall, OSFs have several negative effects on
online service providers.
Since OSFs have such devastating impacts on the growth and success of online service
providers, several studies have been carried out to investigate OSFs in various contexts,
for example, hospitality (Fan et al., 2020), banking (Azemi et al., 2019) and retailing (Ozuem
et al., 2017). These studies have investigated various issues, for example, factors
driving OSFs (Dick et al., 2003), consequences of OSFs (Albrecht et al., 2017; Wang and
Zhang, 2018) and recovery strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of OSFs (Gohary
et al., 2016).
Although the literature around OSF is gradually increasing, it is fragmented and
incoherent. Over the years, a few reviews have been published to synthesize the OSF
literature (e.g. Baliga et al., 2021; Huang et al., 2020; Khamitov et al., 2020; Pankratz and
Basten, 2013); however, they had a narrow scope and did not synthesize the OSF research in
terms of commonly used theories, constructs or methods. For instance, Baliga et al.’s (2021)
recent systematic review examined the published studies on service failure and recovery
limited to the business to business (B2B) context. Therefore, extant reviews failed to provide
up-to-date and comprehensive state-of-the-art synthesis of OSF literature. Thus, a lack of an
up-to-date systematic literature review on OSF warrants a need to systematically review the
literature to provide a state-of-the-art synthesis of OSF literature.
 A systematic literature review (SLR) “adheres to a strict scientific design based on explicit, Online service
pre specified, and reproducible methods” (Gopalakrishnan and Ganeshkumar, 2013, p. 10). failure
Moreover, SLR is an effective approach for highlighting gaps in the literature that offer
directions for future research in a domain (Corbet et al., 2019; Shankar et al., 2022).
Accordingly, an SLR on OSF could provide significant insights to academics as well as
practitioners (Kushwah et al., 2019). Therefore, the current study’s purpose is to conduct an
SLR to present the current state of the literature on OSF. The purpose of this study is
categorized into the following research objectives. The first objective is to assess the growth 799
of the literature on OSF over the years. The second objective is to propose a conceptual
framework from the literature synthesis to understand OSF phenomenon. The third objective
is to provide avenues for future research by highlighting the gaps in the extant literature in
this domain. We adopted Paul and Criado’s (2020) process of conducting an SLR to achieve
the abovementioned objectives.
This SLR provides several academic and practical implications. Academically, we
synthesized the OSF literature with respect to theories, constructs, methods and research
settings thereby providing a state-of-the-art synopsis of the OSF literature. We also proposed
a conceptual framework to illustrate the antecedents, meditators and outcome variables
reported in the OSF literature. This conceptual model helps better understand OSF
phenomenon. Finally, we have identified several gaps and proposed future research
directions to advance the literature in this domain from multiple perspectives, such as
theoretical and methodological perspectives. Practically, our review provides interesting
insights to online service providers into factors driving OSFs and the strategies available to
address them.
Following the introduction, section 2 provides the details of the methodology followed by
section 3 which presents the findings and discussion. Next, future research directions and
implications are discussed in sections 4 and 5, respectively. Finally, section 6 provides
limitations and a conclusion of this study.

2. Methodology
2.1 Review structure
An SLR can be broadly classified into structured reviews, framework-based reviews,
bibliometric reviews, theory development reviews and hybrid reviews. Structured reviews
provide the details of widely used theories, contexts, constructs and methods in a research
domain or topic (Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021; Shankar et al., 2022). A framework-based review is
based on some framework, such as the Antecedents, Decisions and Outcomes (ADO)
framework (Paul and Benito, 2018; Paul and Feliciano-Cestero, 2021) while a bibliometric
review examines the research trends (e.g. themes, citations, authors) in a domain using
statistical tools such as VOSviewer (Khanra et al., 2021). A theory-based review is based on a
specific theory and a hybrid review combines two or more types of reviews, for example,
bibliometric and structured reviews or framework and narrative reviews (Paul and Benito,
2018; Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021; Paul and Feliciano-Cestero, 2021).
Of these types of SLRs, a structured SLR provides a comprehensive synthesis of the
literature and highlights gaps in the literature that provide avenues for future research in a
particular field or a topic (Corbet et al., 2019; Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021; Shankar et al., 2022).
Thus, a structured SLR approach is believed to be an appropriate method to review the extant
literature on OSF. Accordingly, the current SLR adopted a structured SLR approach (Paul
and Criado, 2020).
Following the standard practices of a structured SLR (Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021; Paul and
Criado, 2020), we first synthesized the literature in terms of years, publication outlets, and
authors, which helped us understand the yearly progress of OSF research, themes studied in
JSTP the OSF literature in different time periods, key outlets that published OSF research, and key
32,6 authors in the OSF domain, respectively. After this, we analyzed the OSF literature in terms of
methodological perspectives to understand researchers’ methodological preferences to study
OSF. Next to method-wise synthesis, the literature was synthesized in terms of underpinning
theories to assess the theoretical advancement of OSF research. We then performed a
lexicometric analysis to identify the clusters of concepts in the OSF literature (i.e. themes of
OSF literature), which is further explained in the method section (please see section 2.5).
800 Analysis carried out to this point addresses the first objective of this review which is to assess
the growth of the OSF literature over the years. Next, a construct-wise synthesis was
performed to identify widely used constructs in OSF research to propose a conceptual
framework to understand OSF phenomenon. This construct-wise synthesis and development
of a conceptual framework answered the second objective of this review. Finally, we used the
Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methodology (TCCM) approach to propose future research
directions for the OSF domain in an organized manner. Proposing future research directions
using the TCCM framework answered the final objective of this review.

2.2 Topic selection

The current SLR adopted a review method suggested by Paul and Criado (2020) to synthesize
the available literature on OSF. Topic selection is considered an important step in an SLR
(Shankar et al., 2022). According to Paul and Criado (2020), an SLR paper on a domain under
consideration should not have been published before; in the case where it has been published,
the newly proposed SLR should provide novel insights. Accordingly, a search identified eight
literature reviews in the service failure domain (see Table 1).
Following the guidelines outlined in the literature (e.g. Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021; Shankar
et al., 2022), we analyzed these reviews using five criteria, i.e. literature review methods, focus of
the review, type of articles considered for review, number of articles included in the review and
year range of the articles include in the review. This comparative analysis showed that
although a few review articles had been published in service failure domain, those reviews had
some limitations that hinted at a need to conduct a comprehensive SLR on OSF. Table 1 shows
that the first three reviews (i.e. Pankratz and Basten, 2013; Van Vaerenbergh et al., 2014; Van
Vaerenbergh and Orsingher, 2016) examined articles published up to 2014, and therefore these
reviews are outdated. Service failure literature has progressed much since 2014 and several
developments have been recorded in the service failure domain, especially in the OSF domain.
Further, Pankratz and Basten’s (2013) review is focused on “information system project failure”,
not on OSF in general, suggesting a limited scope of their review. Their review provides
implications for practitioners in the information system field rather than broader online service
providers, such as online retailers. Van Vaerenbergh and Orsingher’s (2016) review synthesized
the literature on “service recovery”. Interestingly, Gibson (2017) described the distinction
between “service failure” and “service recovery” articulating that service failure refers to not
being able to perform the service that a company has promised, while service recovery refers to
compensating and recovering the damage that has been done. This suggests that Van
Vaerenbergh and Orsingher’s review is also limited in scope. Van Vaerenbergh et al. (2014)
adopted a meta-analysis approach to quantitatively synthesize the literature on “service failure
experience”. It is important to note that a structured SLR is a different method from a meta-
analysis (Ashaduzzaman et al., 2022; Maseeh et al., 2021a). That is, although both methods are
used to synthesize the existing research in a domain, the former qualitatively synthesizes the
entire volume of research in terms of theories, methods and constructs studied, while the latter
makes a statistical assessment of extant quantitative studies in a domain (Maseeh et al., 2021b;
Piper, 2013; Pati and Lorusso, 2018; Paul and Criado, 2020).
Of the remaining five reviews, four review papers (i.e. Fouroudi et al., 2020; Huang et al.,
2020; Khamitov et al., 2020; Baliga et al., 2021) have either adopted a bibliometric approach
 Types of
Online service
Literature papers Number of failure
review considered for papers Year
Author method Review focus review included range

Pankratz and Systematic Information System Only articles 47 1978–2013

Basten (2013)a,b,c review project failure from pre-
selected 801
journals
Van Meta- Service failure experience All scholarly 45 1984–2013
Vaerenbergh analysis work
et al. (2014)
Van Integrative Service recovery Scholarly 360 1988–2014
Vaerenbergh review work with
and Orsingher empirical
(2016) results
Fouroudi et al. Bibliometric Service failure and All scholarly 416 1993–2019
(2020) service recovery work
Huang et al. Systematic Failure Mode and Effect All scholarly 263 1998–2018
(2020) review Analysis work
Khamitov et al. Systematic Brand transgression, Only peer- 236 1998–2019
(2020) review Service Failure and reviewed
Recovery and Product- journal articles
Harm Crisis
Manu and Systematic Service recovery in online All scholarly 61 2003–2019
Sreejesh (2021) review platforms (antecedents work
and outcomes, theories,
type/platform/source/
speed/magnitude of
recovery)
Baliga et al. Systematic Service failure and Only peer- 114 1990–2020
(2021) review recovery in B2B reviewed
journal articles
Table 1.
Note(s): aThe authors did not provide information on the number of studies examined in their review. The Existing literature
number of papers is based on relevant references provided in the authors’ reference list; bThe paper was reviews on service
published in a conference proceeding; cThe year range was identified based on the earliest and latest reference failure/online service
used in the literature review process failure

(e.g. Fouroudi et al., 2020) or are limited to specific domains/industries; i.e. failure in project
management (Huang et al., 2020), brand transgression (Khamitov et al., 2020) and service
failure and recovery in a B2B context (Baliga et al., 2021). It is important to note while an SLR
(e.g. Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021) synthesizes literature published in a domain in terms of
theories, methods, constructs and contexts, and identifies gaps to suggest future research
directions in that domain, bibliometric reviews employ statistical tools, such as “VOSviewer”
and “R” to examine trends and citations (Donthu et al., 2021). As shown in Table 1, one of the
recent review in the service failure domain was published by Manu and Sreejesh (2021) which
is focused on “online platform service”, yet it is limited to online service recovery. As indicated
earlier, Gibson (2017) articulated the distinction between “service failure” and “service
recovery”. This suggests that Manu and Sreejesh’s (2021) review has a different focus than
our review. Further, Manu and Sreejesh (2021) synthesized 61 peer-reviewed journal articles
published between 2003 and 2019. Since Manu and Sreejesh’s (2021) review does not consider
studies published after 2019, their review does not provide a state-of-the-art synthesis of the
literature. In addition, Manu and Sreejesh’s (2021) review does not provide a conceptual model
or synthesize commonly used constructs, methods adopted, or contexts related to OSF;
JSTP therefore, their review does not provide a state-of-the-art synthesis of the OSF research to
32,6 examine the development of the literature over time in terms of context, constructs and
methods. Therefore, a lack of an up-to-date SLR on OSF warrants a need to systematically
review the literature to provide a state-of-the-art synthesis of OSF in terms of theories,
methods used, and constructs studied in OSF, and then to suggest future research directions
in this domain.
802
2.3 Search strategy
The next step after selecting a topic is to choose keywords and appropriate databases to
search for articles. The keywords and database selection process are explained below.
2.3.1 Keywords selection. Following the search strategy suggested by Talwar et al. (2020),
we searched for papers on the Google Scholar platform using the keyword “online service
failure”. Thereafter, we screened the first 30 research papers to update our keyword list.
“Online service failure”, “service failure and e-retailing”, and “service failure and online
booking” were the most frequently used keywords in either title, abstract or keyword list.
Hence, we used the same keywords to search for the relevant published papers [1] across the
databases.
2.3.2 Database selection and article search. Following previous SLR papers published in
top-ranking journals (e.g. Khanra et al., 2020; Kushwah et al., 2019; Paul and Benito, 2018; Paul
and Feliciano-Cestero, 2021), we selected several online databases, i.e. ABI Inform/ProQuest,
EBSCO Host, Springer, Emerald, JSTOR, Sage, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science, Wiley
Online Library, Taylor & Francis, and Google Scholar [2] to search for relevant articles. All
the papers using the selected keywords in the title, abstract or keyword list, were considered
for this SLR (Mehta et al., 2022).

2.4 Journal selection and inclusion/exclusion criteria

Following the guidelines outlined in previous SLRs (e.g. Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021; Shankar et al.,
2022), we defined inclusion/exclusion criteria to shortlist articles for this review. Accordingly, an
eligible article should be (a) a scholarly work (b), in the domain of OSF, and (c) published in a peer-
reviewed journal, to be included in this review. Additionally, to ensure the rigor of the review, the
current SLR adopted the recommendation outlined by Paul and Criado (2020), i.e. only articles
that were published either in a journal ranked A-star, or A in the ABDC [3] Journal Quality List or
in a journal with impact factor equal to or more than 1.0 in JCR [4] were included.
A total of 250 articles were retrieved from the online databases. We excluded duplicate
papers (i.e. 107 papers) that were downloaded more than once from the same or different
databases. Thereafter, we employed the inclusion and exclusion criteria to select the articles
for our SLR. Accordingly, 36 out of the remaining 143 articles were excluded as they were not
journal articles (i.e. non scholarly works). Three out of the remaining 107 research papers
were excluded because they were published in non-peer-reviewed journals, leaving 104
articles in our database. Next, we assessed the eligibility of the remaining articles against the
additional inclusion/exclusion criterion explained above to identify papers published in high-
quality journals. Accordingly, a further 30 research papers were excluded leaving 74 high-
quality research papers in our database. Thus, the current SLR synthesized 74 research
papers from 18 countries that appeared in 42 academic journals between 2003 and 2021.
Figure 1 demonstrates the steps taken for collecting and shortlisting the research papers, and
the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria.

2.5 Lexicometric analysis

We performed the lexicometric analysis on the research papers considered for this SLR to
gain in-depth insights into the OSF literature. A large quantity of qualitative textual data can
 Articles accessed from Online service
databases failure
N = 250

Duplicates
(N = 107)

Articles after removing

duplicates Not journal articles
803
N = 143 (N = 36)
Not published in peer reviewed
journals
(N = 3)
Not published in A* or A ranking journal in
ABDC Journal Quality List or in a journal with
impact factor 1.0 or greater in Journal Citation
Figure 1.
Selected articles Report Inclusion and
(N = 30) exclusion criteria
N = 74

be analyzed with the help of lexicometric software, such as Alceste, and Iramuteq, which
enables researchers to interpret the qualitative textual data quantitatively (Abhayawansa,
2011). We used Iramuteq software for lexicometric analysis. Developed by a French
researcher Pierre Ratinaud in 2009, Iramuteq software is highly reputed among researchers
and has been frequently used to analyze textual data (Lavissiere et al., 2020; Mandj
ak et al.,
2019). Iramuteq enables researchers to perform various types of analyses on textual data. One
popular type of analysis of textual data is lexicometric analysis which helps connect
qualitative and quantitative research methods (Shankar et al., 2022), thereby enabling
researchers to perform statistical analysis to identify clusters of concepts in the texts (Reinert,
1990; Krippendorff, 2018). Further, lexicometric analysis enables researchers to conduct
automated textual analysis, which is based on the systematic coding of text. Accordingly, it
mitigates the chance of researcher bias and provides a better understanding of the underlying
concepts in a research area (Shankar et al., 2022).
Following Shankar et al.’s (2022) method, we used Iramuteq software to perform
lexicometric analysis with a traditional SLR. The articles considered for this SLR were coded
in the form of a text file with specified variables and imported into the software to perform
this analysis. We considered “year of publication”, “category of the journal of publication”
(e.g. marketing, tourism), “country of the study”, “research methods”, and “online service
failure context” (e.g. e-retailing, hospitality) as variables for this analysis. The results of a
lexicometric analysis in Iramuteq software are known as “forms”. A form indicates words
that are automatically lemmatized during the lexicometric analysis. During lemmatization,
Iramuteq integrates words having the same meaning, such as “go”, “went”, and “gone”, into a
single word, i.e. “go”. During the lemmatization process, the combined words which appear
more than once in a corpus are called “active forms”. In contrast, a word/form appearing only
once in the corpus is referred to as an hapax. A corpus can be explained as a group of texts
that are imported into Iramuteq for the lexicometric analysis. In the current SLR, the corpus is
the group of published research papers on OSF, i.e. 74 research articles included in this
review.

3. Findings and discussion

This study comprises 74 relevant research papers on the OSF domain. The details of the
research papers; i.e. authors’ name with the year of publication, title, number of citations, and
journal, are shown in Appendix. These articles were reviewed to accomplish the first two
JSTP research objectives of the study, i.e. to synthesize the development of the OSF over time, and
32,6 to develop a comprehensive framework demonstrating OSF phenomenon. The following sub-
sections discuss the systematic synthesis of the literature.

3.1 Advancement of the OSF research over time

The first analysis of the SLR exhibits the development of OSF literature over the past
804 two decades. Yearly distribution of published articles in a research domain helps assess the
advancement of the research in that domain. The first article on OSF was published in 2003.
Accordingly, this SLR considered 2003 as the starting year for OSF publication. Figure 2
shows the yearly publication of the selected studies between 2003 and 2021.
Research on OSF emerged approximately two decades ago, i.e. in 2003. Following this, a
gradual decline in the number of published studies was observed in 2004 and 2005 while in
2006, the number of publications in this domain recovered where four publications were
made. A declining trend of publications can be observed between 2007 and 2011, and again
between 2013 and 2015. However, a significant increase was observed in 2012 (seven studies)
and 2016 (10 studies). Though published articles in this domain have fluctuated from 2016
onwards, there is a general upward trend. The increasing use of online purchases and
services and the increasing amount of remote work in light of the COVID-19 pandemic have
accelerated the incidents of OSFs, thereby driving recent significant research attention in this
domain.

3.2 Themes studied in OSF literature in different time periods- word cloud analysis
In line with the suggestion of Yun et al. (2019), this SLR conducted a word-cloud analysis to
visualize the frequently used keywords in OSF literature in different time periods. Consistent
with previously published SLRs (e.g. Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021), we divided the OSF literature
into four periods, i.e. 2003–2007, 2008–2012, 2013–2017 and 2018–2022 to perform this
analysis. The abstracts of the articles in each time interval were copied to WordClouds.com to
perform word cloud analysis (Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021). Several generic words, such as
“however”, “also”, and “anytime” were excluded from this analysis because such words are
unlikely to reveal any insightful information (Yun et al., 2019). The output of the word cloud
analysis is presented in Figure 3.
The findings suggested that during 2003–2007, “service recovery”, “service failures”,
“knowledge”, “post recovery” and “negative” were the most widely recurring keywords
thereby suggesting that the OSF literature was mainly focused on service failure and
organizations’ efforts of service recovery, and post-recovery consequences and strategies
(Harris et al., 2006a, b; Holloway and Beatty, 2003). In the next two periods (i.e. 2008–2012 and

11
Number of Publications

10

8 8
7 7

4 4
3
2 2 2 2 2
1 1
0 0 0
Figure 2. 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Year-wise publications Year(s)
 Online service
failure

805

Figure 3.
Word cloud analysis

2013–2017), “service recovery”, “justice”, and “satisfaction” were the most prominent
keywords which imply that customers began showing strong reactions to service failures
during these periods (Gr
egoire and Mattila, 2020). Hence, the focus of OSF research shifted to
studying justice or fairness during the service recovery phase along with the role of justice in
enhancing customers’ satisfaction (Chang et al., 2012; Singh and Crisafulli, 2016).
In the last period, i.e. 2018–2022, keywords, such as “brand”, “fairness”, “low-
participation” and “negative” appeared along with “satisfaction” and “recovery”. These
findings indicate that the OSF literature has increasingly looked at the role of branding and
customers’ perceived justice (fairness), satisfaction and lack of participation in the aftermath
of service failures and recovery. Customer participation is a central point of the service
recovery process, and the degree of customer participation is largely determined by how
customers perceive justice or hold themselves accountable for service failures (K€ocher and
Paluch, 2019). When customers believe that the recovery procedure is not fair (e.g. no apology
or non-adequate compensation), customers demonstrate a lack of participation leading to a
JSTP lower level of service recovery satisfaction which may result in “negative outcomes”, such as
32,6 customer dissatisfaction, complaint, switch over and negative word of mouth (Adil et al.,
2013b; Azemi et al., 2019). This phenomenon is somewhat evident in the bottom right word
cloud in Figure 3 which shows that in recent years, researchers are more interested in
addressing issues related to customers’ perceived fairness, their low participation in the
service recovery process (Azemi et al., 2019; Ozuem et al., 2021; Zhang and Shao, 2019), and
their negative emotions/behavior (e.g. frustration, disappointment, insecurity, complaint and
806 switch over).

3.3 Publication outlets

This section focuses on the journal-wise distribution of OSF literature. Table 2 provides the
details of 42 academic journals in which OSF research has been published Table 2 also
demonstrates that the articles have been published in marketing, tourism, management,
commercial service, transport and logistics, and information systems journals. The most papers
in this domain have been published in the Journal of Service Theory and Practice, i.e. seven
papers, followed by the Journal of Services Marketing which has published five research papers.

3.4 Authorship
In line with Kahiya (2018), Paul and Feliciano-Cestero (2021) and Dogra et al. (2022b), Table 3
presents the top 10 most cited articles in the OSF domain. An article by Holloway and Beatty
(2003) was found to be the most cited research article with 626 citations. The papers by Kuo and
Wu (2012), and Harris et al. (2006a, b) had the second (353 citations) and third (328 citations)
highest citations, respectively. Table 3 also presents the average number of citations per year
for these 10 articles. Balaji et al.’s (2016) paper has the highest average citations per annum, i.e.
47.33 citations, followed by Kuo and Wu’s (2012) article with 35.30 citations per annum.

3.5 Methodological perspectives

3.5.1 Research settings. We then distributed the articles on OSF in terms of research settings,
that is, the country where the where the sample is drawn from (Hao et al., 2019). For this
analysis, we considered only empirical research because conceptual research does not require
the collection of primary data from a sample. The SLR observed that 73 empirical research
papers and one conceptual paper had been published in the OSF domain. Table 4
demonstrates that to study OSF, researchers collected data from 16 countries. The highest
number of studies were conducted in the United States (21 studies) followed by Taiwan (16
studies), and the UK (five studies).
3.5.2 Research design and data collection. The research method-wise synthesis is
demonstrated in Table 5. The current SLR observed that either experimental design (i.e. 27
articles) or survey-based design (i.e. 25 articles) was adopted for the majority of research
articles in the OSF domain while 12 papers were qualitative in nature, and one was a
conceptual paper. Further, researchers adopted mixed methods to study OSF in nine papers.
Interestingly, this SLR did not find any review papers in this domain.
In terms of data collection method, Table 5 exhibits that both online and offline modes
were employed to collect data for all the methods, i.e. experimental, survey-based and
qualitative studies. However, the online method was preferred for survey-based studies (17
online and seven offline) while the offline mode was preferred for qualitative (eight offline and
four online) studies. However, when it comes to experiments, although both offline (11
studies) and online (14 studies) modes have been widely used by researchers, a comparatively
larger number of experimental studies have used online mode.
Regarding the types of respondents, the SLR found that either students or general
customers were considered as sample units for research in this domain across all methods
 JCR
Online service
Journal domain impact ABDC failure
Journal as per ABDC # Articles factor ranking

1 Journal of Service Marketing 7 Busser and Shulga (2019), 3.415 A

Theory and Practice Chen (2018), Lee and Park
(2010), Mohd-Any et al.
(2019), Sangle-Ferriere and 807
Voyer (2019), Singh and
Crisafulli (2016), Wang and
Zhang (2018)
2 Journal of Services Marketing 5 Bacile et al. (2020), Do et al. 4.466 A
Marketing (2019), Harris et al. (2006b),
K€ocher and Paluch (2019),
Rosenmayer et al. (2018)
3 The Service Industries Marketing 4 Dabholkar and Spaid (2012), 6.539 B
Journal Lii et al. (2012), Piercy and
Archer-Brown (2014), Wang
et al. (2016)
4 International Journal of Information 4 Kuo and Wu (2012), Luo and 14.098 A*
Information Systems Chea (2018), Mustafa et al.
Management (2020), Wang et al. (2011)
5 Journal of Business Marketing 3 Azemi et al. (2019), Harris 7.550 A
Research et al. (2006a), Sharifi and
Aghazadeh (2016)
6 Journal of Hospitality Marketing 3 Fan et al. (2020), Sharifi et al. 7.022 A
Marketing and (2017), Sparks and Browning
Management (2010)
7 Journal of Service Management 3 Fan et al. (2016), Vakeel et al. 11.768 A
Management (2018), Goetzinger et al.
(2006)
8 Journal of Retailing and Marketing 3 Gohary et al. (2016), 7.135 A
Consumer Services Jafarzadeh et al. (2021),
Lopes and Silva (2015)
9 Computers in Human Information 2 Chang et al. (2012), Crisafulli 6.829 A
Behavior Systems and Singh (2017)
10 Journal of Interactive Marketing 2 Holloway et al. (2005), Zhao 6.258 A
Marketing et al. (2020)
11 Internet Research Information 2 Chang and Chin (2011), Lin 6.773 A
Systems et al. (2018)
12 Psychology and Marketing 2 Das et al. (2020), Ozuem et al. 2.939 A
Marketing (2021)
13 International Journal of Marketing 2 Mattila et al. (2013), Shiu- 3.771 A
Retail and Distribution Wan et al. (2015)
Management
14 Sustainability – 2 Lii et al. (2018), Zhang and 3.251 –
Shao (2019)
15 Journal of Service Marketing 2 Albrecht et al. (2017), 10.667 A*
Research Holloway and Beatty (2003)
16 Journal of Marketing Marketing 2 Neale et al. (2006), 6.960 A
Management Zolfagharian et al. (2018)
17 International Journal of Marketing 1 Ozuem et al. (2017) 1.512 A
Market Research
18 Journal of Hospitality Tourism 1 Zhao et al. (2014) 5.959 A
and Tourism
Management Table 2.
Journals and number of
(continued ) publications
JSTP JCR
32,6 Journal domain impact ABDC
Journal as per ABDC # Articles factor ranking

19 Telematics and Information 1 Ding and Lii (2016) 6.182 C

Informatics Systems
20 Service Business Marketing 1 Li and Fang (2016) 2.791 B
808 21 International Journal of Management 1 Reis et al. (2019) 7.885 A
Production Economics
22 Journal of Information 1 Goode (2020) 2.571 A
Organizational Systems
Computing and
Electronic Commerce
23 Journal of Hospitality Information 1 Ekiz et al. (2012) 5.959 B
and Tourism Systems
Technology
24 Marketing Intelligence Marketing 1 Odoom et al. (2020) 3.491 A
and Planning
25 MIS Quarterly Information 1 Tan et al. (2016) 7.198 A*
Systems
26 International Journal of Marketing 1 Lee and Cude (2012) 3.864 A
Consumer Studies
27 Journal of Travel and Tourism 1 Mattila et al. (2009) 7.564 A
Tourism Marketing
28 Journal of Applied Management 1 Lii et al. (2013) 2.122 B
Social Psychology
29 International Journal of Commercial 1 Kim and Qu (2014) 6.514 A
Contemporary Services
Hospitality
Management
30 Information and Information 1 Balaji et al. (2016) 7.555 A*
Management Systems
31 Journal of Consumer Marketing 1 Jain and Sharma (2019) - A
Marketing
32 Journal of Consumer Marketing 1 Cohen et al. (2020) 2.131 A
Affairs
33 Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing 1 Naumann et al. (2017) 3.979 A
Marketing and
Logistics
34 International Journal of Information 1 Huang et al. (2012) 4.300 A
Electronic Commerce Systems
35 Transportation Logistics 1 Dick et al. (2003) 1.560 B
Research Record
36 Tourism Review Tourism 1 Sreejesh and Anusree (2016) 5.947 B
37 Management Decision Management 1 Dwesar and Sahoo (2022) 4.957 B
38 Sage Open – 1 Joung et al. (2021) 1.356 –
39 Journal of Marketing Marketing 1 Casidy et al. (2021) 5.000 A*
Research
40 Research in Logistics 1 Halpern and Mwesiumo 2.740 C
Transportation (2021)
Business and
Management
41 International Journal of Marketing 1 Manu et al. (2021) 9.237 A*
Hospitality
Management
42 Enterprise Information Information 1 Chen and Wu (2021) 4.350 A
Table 2. System Systems
 Average citations
Online service
Rank Study Journal Citations 1
per year2 failure
1 Holloway and Journal of Services Research 626 32.94
Beatty (2003)
2 Kuo and Wu (2012) International Journal of Information 353 35.30
Management
3 Harris et al. (2006a) Journal of Business Research 328 20.5 809
4 Wang et al. (2011) International Journal of Information 324 29.45
Management
5 Sparks and Journal of Hospitality Marketing and 318 26.50
Browning (2010) Management
6 Balaji et al. (2016) Information and Management 284 47.33
7 Holloway et al. Journal of Interactive Marketing 224 13.17
(2005)
8 Kim and Qu (2014) International Journal of Contemporary 220 27.50
Hospitality Management
9 Ekiz et al. (2012) Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 146 14.60
Technology
10 Harris et al. (2006b) Journal of Services Marketing 145 9.06
Note(s): 1Based on Google Scholar (24/05/2022); 2Total Number of citations divided by number of years after Table 3.
article publication Ten most cited studies

Country 2002–2005 2006–2009 2010–2013 2014–2017 2018–2021 Total

USA 2 3 4 5 7 21
Taiwan 0 0 7 4 5 16
UK 0 0 0 3 2 5
India 0 0 0 1 3 4
Australia 0 1 0 1 1 3
China 0 0 0 1 2 3
Germany 0 0 0 1 2 3
Malaysia 0 0 1 0 1 2
France 0 0 0 0 2 2
Albania 0 0 0 0 1 1
Canada 0 0 0 1 1 2
Iran 0 0 0 1 0 1
Kosovo 0 0 0 0 1 1
Portugal 0 0 0 0 1 1
Ghana 0 0 0 0 1 1
Italy 0 0 0 0 1 1
N/A# 1 1 1 2 9 14 Table 4.
Note(s): #: This includes studies that have either not disclosed the name of the country from where the data Countries and number
was collected or have derived worldwide data using different platforms, such as social media of publications

and data collection modes. However, general customers (24 studies) were preferred for online
data collection while students (18 studies) were preferred for offline data collection. This
might be because of the ease of accessing students within the on-campus premises for offline
data collection.

3.6 Theoretical perspectives

3.6.1 Theories used in OSF research. The current study also examined theories adopted for
OSF research over time. These theories are listed in Table 6 which shows that justice theory
JSTP Research methods
32,6 # Student General consumer

Experiment
Online 14 Dabholkar and Spaid (2012), Lee and Busser and Shulga (2019), Fan et al.
Cude (2012), Mattila et al. (2009) (2016), Fan et al. (2020), Jafarzadeh et al.
(2021), Jain and Sharma (2019), Kuo and
810 Wu (2012), Lin et al. (2018), Sharifi and
Aghazadeh (2016), Sharifi et al. (2017),
Singh and Crisafulli (2016), Zhang and
Shao (2019)
Offline 11 Albrecht et al. (2017), Chang and Chin Harris et al. (2006a,b), Zhao et al. (2014),
(2011), Das et al. (2020), Gohary et al. Zolfagharian et al. (2018)
(2016), Lii et al. (2013), Sreejesh and
Anusree (2016), Zhao et al. (2020)
Online þ Offline 2 Casidy et al. (2021), K€ocher and Paluch
(2019)
Survey based
Online 17 Dick et al. (2003), Holloway et al. (2005), Balaji et al. (2016), Chang et al. (2012),
Huang et al. (2012) Chen and Wu (2021), Cohen et al. (2020),
Crisafulli and Singh (2017), Ding and Lii
(2016), Halpern and Mwesiumo (2021),
Joung et al. (2021), Kim and Qu (2014),
Lopes and Silva (2015), Piercy and
Archer-Brown (2014), Shiu-Wan et al.
(2015), Wang et al. (2011), Wang et al.
(2016)
Offline 7 Lii et al. (2018), Lii et al. (2012), Neale et al. Goode (2020), Li and Fang (2016), Mohd-
(2006) Any et al. (2019), Mustafa et al. (2020)
Online þ Offline 1 Odoom et al. (2020)
Qualitative
Online 4 Ekiz et al. (2012), Rosenmayer et al.
(2018), Sparks and Browning (2010), Tan
et al. (2016)
Offline 8 Azemi et al. (2019), Lee and Park (2010), Azemi et al. (2019), Ozuem et al. (2021)
Naumann et al. (2017), Ozuem et al.
(2017), Reis et al. (2019), Sangle-Ferriere
and Voyer (2019)
Mixed Method 9 Bacile et al. (2020), Holloway and Beatty Mattila et al. (2013), Dwesar and Sahoo
(2003), Goetzinger et al. (2006) (2022), Luo and Chea (2018), Manu et al.
(2021), Vakeel et al. (2018), Wang and
Table 5. Zhang (2018)
Research methods used Literature 0 —
in online service failure Review
research Conceptual 1 Do et al. (2019)

has been used more frequently in the OSF literature followed by attribution theory. Justice
theory and attribution theory have been adopted in 15 and 13 studies, respectively. Overall,
about 37.83% of the studies included in this SLR were based on either justice theory or
attribution theory. Of the multiple theories used in the OSF domain, due to space limitation,
only recently used theories are explained below.
3.6.2 Recently used theories in OSF. Table 6 demonstrates that Social Learning Theory
(Chen, 2018), Appraisal Theory (Goode, 2020), Affect Transfer Theory (Wang and
Zhang, 2018), Affective Event Theory (Luo and Chea, 2018), Cognitive Fit Theory (Zhang
Theory Articles References
Online service
failure
Justice Theory 15 Azemi et al. (2019), Bacile et al. (2020), Chang et al. (2012), Do et al.
(2019), Gohary et al. (2016), Holloway et al. (2005), Kuo and Wu (2012),
Lee and Park (2010), Lii et al. (2012), Mohd-Any et al. (2019), Odoom
et al. (2020), Rosenmayer et al. (2018), Singh and Crisafulli (2016), Wang
et al. (2011), Zhao et al. (2014)
Attribution theory 13 Albrecht et al. (2017), Chen (2018), Cohen et al. (2020), Dabholkar and 811
Spaid (2012), Harris et al. (2006a,b), Jain and Sharma (2019), K€ocher and
Paluch (2019), Lin et al. (2018), Manu et al. (2021), Vakeel et al. (2018),
Zhao et al. (2014), Zolfagharian et al. (2018)
Expectation 7 Chen and Wu (2021), Ding and Lii (2016), Do et al. (2019), Lii et al. (2013),
Confirmation Theory Manu et al. (2021), Mohd-Any et al. (2019), Tan et al. (2016)
Equity Theory 6 Mattila et al. (2013), Ding and Lii (2016), Lii et al. (2013), Lii et al. (2018),
Ozuem et al. (2017), Goetzinger et al. (2006)
Cognitive Dissonance 2 Balaji et al. (2016), Jafarzadeh et al. (2021)
Theory
Uncanny Valley Theory 2 Fan et al. (2016), Fan et al. (2020)
Social Learning Theory 1 Chen (2018)
Affect Transfer Theory 1 Wang and Zhang (2018)
Affective Event 1 Luo and Chea (2018)
Cognitive Fit Theory 1 Dwesar and Sahoo (2022), Zhang and Shao (2019) Table 6.
Appraisal Theory 1 Goode (2020) Theories used in online
Actor Network Theory 1 Ozuem et al. (2021) service failure research

and Shao, 2019) and Actor Network Theory (Ozeum et al., 2021) have been adopted in OSF
research since 2018. These recently used theories and their underpinnings to OSF research
are elaborated below.
3.6.2.1 Social learning theory. Bandura (1986) explained that social learning theory focuses
on individuals’ imitation behavior that people learn from others. Social in social learning
theory means the context in which learning takes place (Bandura, 1986). Further, Bandura
(1977, 1986) argued that individuals learn not only from their own experiences but also from
observing others and the environment around them. Chen (2018) used social learning theory
to provide theoretical support for investigating customers’ involvement and self-efficacy in
dealing with service failures. Chen (2018) found that customers with high self-efficacy are
more likely to blame service providers when they experience a service failure while customers
with low self-efficacy are comparatively less likely to blame service providers for a service
failure due to their low self-confidence. Customers with low self-efficacy might believe that a
service failure is their fault.
3.6.2.2 Appraisal theory. Appraisal theory was postulated by Scherer (1984) and gradually
developed over the years by researchers in psychology (Smith and Ellsworth, 1985),
sociology (Schaeffer, 1992) and marketing (Qualls and Moore, 1990) fields. Appraisal theory
was developed to explain the cause of emotions (Ellsworth, 2013) where, “human emotions
result from the subjective evaluation of events” (Broekens et al., 2008, p. 173). Appraisal
theory states that individuals evaluate events in a subjective way which triggers their
emotions (Zheng et al., 2019). In the OSF research, Goode (2020) used the underpinnings of
appraisal theory to investigate customers’ attributions and coping strategies for reducing
negative emotions resulting from service failures. Goode (2020) considered three kinds of
coping strategies, namely: confrontational coping, acceptance and positive reinterpretation,
which in turn determine satisfaction (i.e. emotion) with an online cloud service.
3.6.2.3 Affect transfer theory. Affect transfer theory has been widely used in several
research domains, such as advertising (Mitchell and Nelson, 2018), international marketing
JSTP (Laroche et al., 2005), corporate social responsibility (Scheinbaum and Lacey, 2015),
32,6 information technology (Zhao et al., 2020) and tourism (Zhao et al., 2020). Affect transfer
theory explains the process whereby individuals’ pre-existing affect (mood, emotion, and
feelings) toward an object is transferred to another closely related object (Zhao et al., 2020,
p. 3). In OSF research, Wang and Zhang (2018) used the affect transfer theory to study the
influence of OSF on online customer satisfaction and offline customer loyalty. Wang and
Zhang’s (2018) findings demonstrate that OSF can affect online satisfaction but not offline
812 loyalty.
3.6.2.4 Affective event theory. Affective event theory was postulated by Weiss and
Cropanzano (1996) to study employees’ affective reactions to experiencing a positive or
negative event in their workplace. Affective event theory has gradually evolved during the
past two decades in several research domains, such as tourism (Lam and Chen, 2012),
transport and logistics (Sarker et al., 2019) and marketing (Cano et al., 2009). Affective event
theory was used for the first time in the OSF research by Luo and Chea (2018). They used it to
explore customers’ affectivities when website features succeed or fail, which in turn results in
revisit or switching behavior. Luo and Chea (2018) found that a failure of website features
results in negative affective states which in turn lead to dissatisfaction and complaint
intention while successful website features result in positive affective states, high product
satisfaction, and positive recommendation intention.
3.6.2.5 Cognitive fit theory. Proposed by Vessey (1991), cognitive fit theory posits that
individuals’ problem-solving efficacy can be influenced by a fit between the way a problem is
presented and the attributes of the problem-solving task. When the problem presentation and
the attributes of the problem-solving task constitute similar kinds of information and process,
a cognitive fit takes place which in turn enhances the chances for a fast and more accurate
decision (Vessey, 1991).
Zhang and Shao (2019) used cognitive fit theory for the first time in OSF research followed
by Dwesar and Sahoo (2022). Zhang and Shao (2019) suggested that customers’ post-recovery
satisfaction depends on the type of information provided to customers and the process
adopted by service providers to solve OSFs (i.e. problem). If customers are provided with
correct and satisfactory information and if OSFs adopt an efficient process of service
recovery, customers’ post-recovery satisfaction will be high.
3.6.2.6 Actor-network theory. According to actor-network theory, society is “constituted by
heterogeneous collectivities of people, but always together with technology, machines and
objects” (Doolin and Lowe, 2002, p. 72). Actor-network theory does not discriminate between
social and technical actors and considers both as parts of society (Islam et al., 2019). Simply
put, actor-network theory posits that our society and organizations consist of complex inter-
relationships between people and technology referred to as “networks of human and non-
human actors”. As such, actor-network theory can help study the relationships between
human and non-human actors and their impact on each other (Holmqvist et al., 2020). In the
context of online service, actor-network theory can provide a sociotechnical perspective to
understand how the interactions between technology and human processes can resolve OSFs
(Ozuem et al., 2021).

3.7 Results of the lexicometric analysis

A lexicometric analysis was performed on a corpus (text imported into the software)
composed of 74 texts (research papers included in this SLR). This corpus had 491,854
occurrences of words with an average of 7,566.98 occurrences per text (i.e. around 7,567 words
per article). These occurrences comprise 16,403 forms (words that appear more than once in
the corpus) including 5,964 hapaxes (words that appear only once in the corpus) (36.64% of
forms and 1.21% of occurrences). There were 13,057 active forms used for the analysis. The
overview statistics of this lexicometric analysis are presented in Table 7.
 3.7.1 Similarity analysis. This study used Iramuteq software to conduct similarity Online service
analysis. Based on the underlying thematic patterns in a corpus, the software automatically failure
generates the clusters of concepts in the corpus, thus the chances of researcher bias are
minimal (Illia et al., 2014; Macke et al., 2018). Iramuteq software first divides texts into smaller
sections known as “segments”. Thereafter, these segments are divided into clusters based on
word distribution. The proximity of words in the segments and the recurrence of this
proximity signals the presence of conceptual mapping. The closer two words appear in the
segments, the stronger the overlap between the concepts. Although it may be possible for two 813
concepts to belong to different lexical fields, their frequent occurrence in the same segment
suggests an intersection between the concepts across the texts (articles included in this SLR).
This whole process is termed “similarity analysis”.
A similarity analysis was run with the word “service” (Figure 4). The output showed four
groups of concepts interrelated with the main concept “service”. The first group is related to
the concept “customer” which comprises words related to customer responses, such as anger,
distrust, feelings, motivation, power, satisfy, dissatisfy, involvement, engagement, and
behavior. The second group is associated with the concept “recovery” which considers
recovery-related attributes, such as justice, fairness, explanation, and cost. The third group
focuses on the concept “failure” which comprises failure related attributes, such as error,
responsibility, incident, agreement and loss. The fourth group concerns “online” which
overlaps with “service” and “failure” and involves words, such as retailer, shopper, Internet,
shop, severity, and complain, suggesting stakeholders and infrastructure support are needed
in online services.
Overall, the similarity analysis shows the key themes, i.e. focused areas of the OSF
literature. The similarity analysis shows that the OSF literature comprises inter-connected
concepts, such as “outcomes of service failure”, “service recovery” and “online customer
support”. That is, the OSF literature studies the whole chain starting from service failure-
related incidents to organizations’ service recovery strategies. The occurrence of words, such
as “bank”, “online”, “retailer” and “website” suggest that the OSF research largely studies
outcomes of service failure and service recovery strategies in the context of bank and online
retailing websites.
3.7.2 Factorial correspondence analysis. Although the similarity analysis presents an
interesting analysis of the corpus: an organization of key concepts, the literature recommends
factorial correspondence analysis for an in-depth analysis of the main groups of relations in a
corpus (Reinert, 1990). Factorial correspondence analysis provides (a) a dendrogram based on
hierarchical word clustering and (b) a two-dimensional graphical visualization of word
clusters.
The results of the dendrogram (Figure 5) reveal four categories of words in our corpus. To
minimize researcher bias, these categories were named by three service-marketing scholars in
two stages. In the first stage, each scholar named each category individually. In the second
stage, these three scholars discussed and consensually named the categories. Class 1 was
named “online customer support” which comprises words such as online, channel, Internet,
website, assistance, contact and chat. Class 2 was named “outcomes of service failure” and is

Texts 74
Text segments 13,929
Occurrences 491,854
Average occurrences per text 7566.98
Forms 16,403 Table 7.
Hapaxes 5964 (36.64% of forms, 1.21% of occurrences) Statistics of
Active forms for analysis 13,057 lexicometric analysis
JSTP
32,6

814

Figure 4.
Similarity analysis

composed of words such as blame, emotional, negative, attribution, participation and

engagement. Class 3 was named “service recovery” which includes words such as justice,
compensation, distribution, procedural and interactional. Class 4 was named “research
methods and analysis” and includes words such as sample, item, questionnaire, scale, validity,
reliability and analysis.
Factorial correspondence analysis statistically organizes the above word classes along
two dimensions based on their co-occurrences within the segments. The four classes of words
are plotted on two axes (Figure 6). The graphical representation depicts a three-bladed
propeller. The first blade is devoted to “online customer support”, the second blade is related to
“service failure consequences and service recovery strategies” and the third blade is
predominantly focused on “research methods and analysis”. Interestingly, though “service
failure consequences” and “service recovery strategies” appear as separate classes of words in
the dendrogram; they overlap in two-dimensional axes and appear in the same blade. If we
exclude the methodological and analytical facts that are intrinsic to any literature review, we
are left with a dichotomous categorization of the literature, which shows two concepts: “online
customer support” and “service failure consequences and service recovery strategies”. That is,
on one side, the OSF literature focuses on the consequences of service failure and strategies
 Online service
failure

815

Figure 5.
Dendrogram with
named classes of the
whole corpus

used in redressing service failure, while on the other side, it studies online channels and
customer support provided in online channels.

3.8 Synthesis of frequently discussed variables/constructs

The second objective of the current SLR is to develop a conceptual framework demonstrating
the antecedents, mediators and consequences of OSF phenomenon. Accordingly, Table 8
demonstrates the synthesis of variables in OSF research. The extant literature suggests that
two sets of factors drive OSF, namely: customers’ side of factors (Azemi et al., 2019), and
service providers or company side of factors (Holloway and Beatty, 2003). When service
failures occur, service providers initiate service recovery strategies, such as compensation
(Odoom et al., 2020), apology (Odoom et al., 2020), response time (Crisafulli and Singh, 2017)
and explanation (Odoom et al., 2020) to mitigate the negative consequences of OSFs.
Depending on the effectiveness of service recovery strategies in resolving service failures, the
consequences can be positive (e.g. repurchase intention) or negative (negative word of mouth).
The abovementioned variables are briefly discussed below.
3.8.1 Antecedents of OSF. 3.8.1.1 Customers’ side of factors. Customers play an
important role in handling self-service technologies (Luo and Chea, 2018). Generally,
customers’ lack of knowledge and understanding of self-service technology results in the
failure of online services (Wang and Zhang, 2018). The literature presents three main
customer-related factors leading to OSF: lack of customer participation (Vakeel et al., 2018),
lack of customer knowledge (Azemi et al., 2019), and lack of compatibility (Kim and Qu, 2014)
which are explained below.
3.8.1.1.1. Lack of customer participation. Customer participation refers to the extent of
customers’ involvement in the consumption of a service (Vakeel et al., 2018). Many
organizations attract customers’ involvement to co-produce service, such as service involving
self-service technology (Lin et al., 2018; Zolfagharian et al., 2018) to avoid any blame for
JSTP
32,6

816

Figure 6.
Clusters of the whole
corpus

service failure (Albrecht et al., 2017) and to meet the specific needs of customers (Gohary et al.,
2016). For example, airline companies ask customers to check-in before they arrive at airports
to avoid service failure. Further, banks ask customers to correctly provide required
information while transferring money to avoid service failures (Azemi et al., 2019). Therefore,
it can be interpreted that low customer involvement may result in OSF.
3.8.1.1.2. Lack of customer knowledge. Customer knowledge is individuals’ belief in their
knowledge in the service consumption domain (Azemi et al., 2019). Piercy and Archer-Brown
(2014) indicate that customers’ knowledge of using the Internet impacts their decision to buy
online. Therefore, knowledge of online services can minimize the likelihood of OSF. For
example, Wang and Zhang (2018) suggested that higher knowledge of online service reduces
the chances of OSF. Thus, it can be interpreted that a lack of knowledge about technology and
online service may result in OSF.
3.8.1.1.3. Lack of compatibility. Compatibility refers to “the degree to which the innovation fits
with the potential adopter’s existing values, previous experiences and current needs” (Kim
and Qu, 2014, p. 229). Tan et al. (2016) indicate that customers prefer to use an online service if
it is compatible with them. However, customers’ perceptions of no or low compatibility with a
new online service mechanism will reduce their involvement, possibly resulting in OSF (Kim
and Qu, 2014).
Variable name Source
Online service
failure
Antecedents
Customer’s Role
Lack of customer Albrecht et al. (2017), Azemi et al. (2019), Chen (2018), Fan et al. (2020), Gohary et al.
participation (2016), K€ocher and Paluch (2019), Lin et al. (2018), Vakeel et al. (2018), Zhang and
Shao (2019), Zolfagharian et al. (2018) 817
Lack of customer Azemi et al. (2019), Holloway et al. (2005), Lin et al. (2018), Piercy and Archer-
knowledge Brown (2014), Wang and Zhang (2018)
Lack of compatibility Kim and Qu (2014), Li and Fang (2016), Tan et al. (2016), Zolfagharian et al. (2018)
Service Providers’ Role
Website design problem Azemi et al. (2019), Chang et al. (2012), Ding and Lii (2016), Goetzinger et al. (2006),
Gohary et al. (2016), Holloway and Beatty (2003), Holloway et al. (2005), K€ocher
and Paluch (2019), Kuo and wu (2012), Lee and Park (2010), Lin et al. (2018),
Rosenmayer et al. (2018), Vakeel et al. (2018), Wang et al. (2011), Wang and Zhang
(2018), Zhao et al. (2014)
Online payment problem Ding and Lii (2016), Ekiz et al. (2012), Goetzinger et al. (2006), Gohary et al. (2016),
Harris et al. (2006b), Holloway and Beatty (2003), Holloway et al. (2005), K€ocher
and Paluch (2019), Kuo and Wu (2012), Lee and Park (2010), Lin et al. (2018),
Odoom et al. (2020), Rosenmayer et al. (2018), Vakeel et al. (2018), Wang et al.
(2011), Wang and Zhang (2018)
Security problem Chang et al. (2012), Ding and Lii (2016), Goetzinger et al. (2006), Gohary et al.
(2016), Holloway et al. (2005), K€ocher and Paluch (2019), Kuo and Wu (2012), Lee
and Park (2010), Lin et al. (2018), Rosenmayer et al. (2018), Wang et al. (2011),
Wang and Zhang (2018), Zhao et al. (2014)
Information failure Chang et al. (2012), Ding and Lii (2016), Gohary et al. (2016), Holloway et al. (2005),
Kuo and Wu (2012), Lin et al. (2018), Rosenmayer et al. (2018), Tan et al. (2016),
Wang et al. (2011), Wang and Zhang (2018), Zhao et al. (2014)
Mediator
Compensation Azemi et al. (2019), Chen (2018), Crisafulli and Singh (2017), Gohary et al. (2016),
Harris et al. (2006a), Odoom et al. (2020), Ozuem et al. (2017), Wang and Zhang
(2018)
Apology Azemi et al. (2019), Harris et al. (2006b), Mattila et al. (2009), Odoom et al. (2020),
Sharifi et al. (2017), Wang and Zhang (2018), Zhao et al. (2014)
Faster response time Crisafulli and Singh (2017), Goetzinger et al. (2006), Mustafa et al. (2020), Odoom
et al. (2020)
Explanation Fan et al. (2020), Mattila et al. (2009), Odoom et al. (2020), Ozuem et al. (2017),
Sharifi et al. (2017)
Moderator
Transactional frequency Azemi et al. (2019), Chang et al. (2012), Holloway et al. (2005), Holloway and Beatty
(2003)
Consequences
Positive Outcome
Post-recovery satisfaction Busser and Shulga (2019), Crisafulli and Singh (2017), Gohary et al. (2016), Goode
(2020), Harris et al. (2006a), Kuo and Wu (2012), Mattila et al. (2009), Odoom et al.
(2020), Sharifi and Aghazadeh (2016), Sharifi et al. (2017), Zhang and Shao (2019),
Zhao et al. (2014)
Customer loyalty Busser and Shulga (2019), Gohary et al. (2016), Lopes and Silva (2015), Mohd-Any
et al. (2019), Ozuem et al. (2017), Wang et al. (2011), Wang and Zhang (2018),
Zolfagharian et al. (2018)
Repurchase intention Azemi et al. (2019), Ding and Lii (2016), Harris et al. (2006a), Holloway and Beatty
(2003), Holloway et al. (2005), Kim and Qu (2014), K€ocher and Paluch (2019), Kuo
and Wu (2012), Lii et al. (2012), Lii et al. (2013), Luo and Chea (2018), Vakeel et al.
(2018), Wang et al. (2016), Zhao et al. (2014) Table 8.
Widely discussed
(continued ) variables
JSTP Variable name Source
32,6
Positive word of mouth Crisafulli and Singh (2017), Gohary et al. (2016), Lii et al. (2012), Luo and Chea
(2018), Manu et al. (2021), Singh and Crisafulli (2016)
Trust Azemi et al. (2019), Busser and Shulga (2019), Ding and Lii (2016), Ozuem et al.
(2017), Ozuem et al. (2021)

818 Negative Outcome

Customer dissatisfaction Azemi et al. (2019), Fan et al. (2020), Mustafa et al. (2020), Ozuem et al. (2017),
Ozuem et al. (2021), Zolfagharian et al. (2018)
Customer complaint Albrecht et al. (2017), Chang and Chin (2011), Holloway and Beatty (2003), Lee and
Cude (2012), Luo and Chea (2018)
Switching service Azemi et al. (2019), Fan et al. (2016), Lin et al. (2018), Piercy and Archer-Brown
providers (2014), Singh and Crisafulli (2016)
Negative word of mouth Albrecht et al. (2017), Balaji et al. (2016), Holloway et al. (2005), Lii et al. (2012), Lin
Table 8. et al. (2018)

3.8.1.2 Service providers or company side of factors. The second set of factors contributing to
OSF consists of those related to service providers, which includes website design problems,
online payment problems, security problems, and information failure. These factors are
briefly elaborated below.
3.8.1.2.1. Website design problem. A website is the first point of interaction between customers
and service providers, and its design is an integral part of the service provider’s business
model (Azemi et al., 2019). Poor website design frequently leads to OSF (Holloway and Beatty,
2003). Complex, poorly designed, or difficult to navigate websites lead to OSFs, and such
website-related factors can be considered service providers’ side of factors. Kuo and Wu
(2012) and Wang and Zhang (2018) indicated that complexity in website design or website
failures leads to customer dissatisfaction because they are not able to obtain the expected
service if the website does not support them. For example, online flash sales invite heavy
traffic to online service providers’ websites leading to a possible breakdown of their website,
which in turn results in OSF and low participation from customers (Vakeel et al., 2018).
Therefore, poor quality website design leads to OSF.
3.8.1.2.2 . Online payment problem. Online payment is a core part of online service businesses.
Payment related problems may cause poor customer experience and online cart
abandonment, which contribute to OSF (Holloway and Beatty, 2003). Any problem
occurring when making an online payment results in service failure (Vakeel et al., 2018;
K€ocher and Paluch, 2019), for which service providers are held accountable (Gohary et al.,
2016). For example, if there are payment-related problems when purchasing online due to
technical faults, customers consider them as OSF (Vakeel et al., 2018). As such, online
payment problems are considered service providers’ side of factor leading to OSF.
3.8.1.2.3. Security problem. In an online service environment, it is important to provide
security to customers (Tan et al., 2016). Service failure can occur if customers feel insecure
while performing transactions on an online service website (Goetzinger et al., 2006). While
obtaining a service online or purchasing a product online, customers are asked to share their
personal details and secure information, for example, credit card details (Ding and Lii, 2016).
Sharing such secure information can lead to scams and can attract hackers. Therefore, the
success of online services depends on the security provided by service providers. Thus,
perceptions of insecurity lead to OSF.
3.8.1.2.4. Information failure. An online service can be disrupted because of “inaccurate,
incorrect, incomplete, untimely, and irrelevant information” (Mustafa et al., 2020, p. 3).
Tan et al. (2016) indicated that information failure contributes to many service failures.
For example, untimely receipt of one-time passwords (OTPs) during financial transactions or Online service
non-availability of shipment tracking information during online shopping disrupt the online failure
service which eventually thwarts customer engagement (Wang and Zhang, 2018). However,
providing reliable and timely information via service providers’ websites about service
reduces the likelihood of service failures because reliable and timely information helps
customers obtain their expected service (Zhao et al., 2014).
3.8.2 Mediators. The extant literature on OSF demonstrates that service recovery can
mediate the relationships between antecedents of OSF and how customers respond to OSFs. 819
Service failure is a widely occurring phenomenon in the online service context (Azemi et al.,
2019). Service providers are more inclined to maintain their recovery strategies and processes
to retain customers after a service failure occurs. When such service failures occur, customers
expect effective service recoveries from service providers. Service recovery means the
process of mitigating the impact of service failure on customers and service providers (Harris
et al., 2006a, b). Service recovery can be defined as “the actions taken by a service provider in
response to customer complaints caused by a service failure” (Lin et al., 2011, p. 514). Mattila
et al. (2009) suggested that service recovery efforts should match service failures. If OSFs
have been satisfactorily addressed using service recovery strategies, customers tend to
respond favorably and the ultimate outcomes of the OSF will still be positive. However, if
service recovery strategies are not effective enough to resolve these OSFs, the OSF
consequences will be negative. Overall, the extant OSF literature has considered the following
order or relationships—Antecedents of OSF→Service Recovery Process→ Consequences
(post recovery consumer response). Thus, service recovery strategies play a mediating role
between the drivers of OSF and how customers respond to OSF.
Researchers have suggested various online service recovery strategies, such as
compensation (Gohary et al., 2016), apology (Mattila et al., 2009), faster response time
(Crisafulli and Singh, 2017) and explanation (Odoom et al., 2020). Of these four service
recovery strategies, “fast response time” and “explanation” are more relevant to address
OSFs caused by customer side of factors, such as a lack of customer knowledge. However, all
four recovery strategies can be relevant to address the OSFs caused by service provider/
company side of factors. These service recovery approaches are briefly discussed below.
3.8.2.1 Compensation. Compensation means giving something (in monetary or non-
monetary form) to customers after a service failure (Gohary et al., 2016). Providing monetary
compensation is considered an effective approach to reducing dissatisfaction among
customers following an OSF (Crisafulli and Singh, 2017). Therefore, online service providers
offer compensation mainly in the form of rebates and coupons to customers to retain them
after an OSF.
3.8.2.2 Apology. An apology is a message conveying the acceptance of service failure
through an expression of remorse (Sharifi et al., 2017). An apology is a strong remedy for
improving the relationship between customers and service providers following an OSF
(Mattila et al., 2009). Zhao et al. (2014) indicated that online service providers use apology in
the case of service failure, which help them retain customers.
3.8.2.3 Faster response time. Customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the service
recovery approach following a service failure depends on the service providers’ efficiency in
handling OSFs (Crisafulli and Singh, 2017). Customer perceptions of the service providers’
efficiency in handling OSFs mainly depend on the speed of their response, i.e. the time taken
to acknowledge and fix an OSF (Odoom et al., 2020). Though some OSFs are caused by
customer side of factors, such as lack of customer knowledge or lack of compatibility, speedy
acknowledgment and fixing by the online service provider will serve as an effective approach
to addressing service failure and retaining customers. Thus, following an OSF, service
providers can use a faster response time as a service recovery approach to retaining
customers.
JSTP 3.8.2.4 Explanation. Providing an explanation to customers following an OSF is
32,6 considered an effective service recovery approach that has a strong impact on customers’
responses to OSF (Mattila et al., 2009). Fan et al. (2020) indicated that if customers are given an
explanation with accurate and useful information of what has caused the OSF, they are less
likely to exhibit switching behavior. Similarly, Odoom et al. (2020) suggested that if customers
are provided with an explanation of why the failure occurred and how service providers will
resolve the failure, it is likely to reduce their dissatisfaction. For instance, at times, the
820 customer side of factors (e.g. lack of customer knowledge, lack of customer participation or
lack of compatibility) result in OSF, thus customers bear some responsibility for such OSFs.
Hence, following an OSF, service providers can use explanation as a service recovery
approach to retaining customers.
3.8.3 Moderator. The OSF literature suggests that transactional frequency moderates the
relationship between service providers’ recovery strategies and the consequences of OSF
(Chang et al., 2012). As the number of transactions increases, consumers become more
familiar and as a result perceive less risk with the service provider (Azemi et al., 2019;
Holloway and Beatty, 2003). Thus, experience with the service provider acts as a buffer and
enhances the effectiveness of recovery strategies. In contrast, customers with limited or no
previous experience with the service provider are in the process of learning and may have
limited confidence in the service provider’s recovery strategies (Holloway et al., 2005). The
OSF literature suggests that when an OSF happens, customers who have high transactional
frequency with an online service provider tend to discern the service providers’ recovery
strategies (i.e. explanation, faster response time, apology and compensation) following OSF,
resulting in positive outcomes, such as positive word of mouth, trust, customer loyalty and
repurchase intention. However, customers with low transactional frequency tend to be less
sensitive or do not appreciate the service providers’ recovery strategies leading to negative
outcomes, such as negative word of mouth, complaints, and switching behavior.
3.8.4 Consequences to OSF following service recovery strategies. 3.8.4.1 Positive
outcomes. The extant literature on OSF indicates that customers exhibit positive reactions to
the service recovery approach if service providers successfully solve service failures (Azemi
et al., 2019; Harris et al., 2006a, b). The literature suggests that customers may exhibit positive
responses, such as post-recovery satisfaction (Gohary et al., 2016; Mattila et al., 2009),
customer loyalty (Gohary et al., 2016), positive word of mouth (Gohary et al., 2016; Luo and
Chea, 2018), repurchase intention (Ding and Lii, 2016) and trust (Ding and Lii, 2016) if OSFs
are resolved successfully. Mattila et al. (2009) also indicated that customers are likely to be
satisfied with online service providers if they successfully resolve OSFs. Further, successful
service recovery following an OSF results in customer loyalty and customer retention with
online service providers (Mohd-Any et al., 2019). Thus, successful service recovery following
OSF results in customers’ intention to reuse the service (Azemi et al., 2019).
3.8.4.2 Negative outcomes. The extant literature on OSF indicates that customers exhibit
negative reactions to service recovery approaches if service providers fail to resolve OSFs
effectively (Fan et al., 2016, 2020; Zolfagharian et al., 2018). These negative responses include
customer dissatisfaction (Zolfagharian et al., 2018), customer complaint (Lee and Cude, 2012;
Luo and Chea, 2018), negative word of mouth (Albrecht et al., 2017) and switching service
providers (Fan et al., 2016; Lin et al., 2018). Zolfagharian et al. (2018) indicated that when
service providers fail to provide an effective service recovery following OSF, it results in
higher dissatisfaction among their customers. Further, a poor service recovery following an
OSF would increase the likelihood of customer complaints (Lee and Cude, 2012; Luo and Chea,
2018). Another negative outcome is customer switching behavior (Lin et al., 2018). Piercy and
Archer-Brown (2014) indicated that customers show a high propensity to switch a service
provider following an OSF if they experience a poor service recovery approach; i.e. if the
service recovery approach does not restore the service or resolve their concerns. Negative
word of mouth is another negative consequence of OSF (Albrecht et al., 2017). Holloway et al. Online service
(2005) indicated that customers are likely to spread stronger negative word of mouth when failure
online service providers failed to provide a better service recovery because those customers
experienced service failures twice (in the initial service consumption context and in the
service recovery consumption context).

3.9 Development of an integrated conceptual framework 821

A conceptual framework was developed integrating frequently used constructs (these
constructs were discussed previously) in the OSF research. Figure 7 demonstrates the
antecedents, mediators, moderator and consequences of OSF phenomenon.
The antecedents of OSF are shown on the left-hand side of the conceptual framework.
These antecedents can be broadly divided into two, i.e. customers’ side of factors (lack of
customer participation, lack of customer knowledge, and lack of compatibility) and service
providers or company side of factors (website design problem, online payment problem,
security problem, and information failure) which result in OSF. The model also shows that
service recovery approaches act as the mediator which means that following an OSF, online
service providers are prompted to adopt service recovery approaches to address service
failures. These approaches include compensation, apology, faster response time, and
explanation. If these approaches effectively address customer concerns and restore online
service, they will result in positive customer outcomes (post-recovery satisfaction, trust,
customer loyalty, repurchase intention and positive word of mouth). Otherwise, they will
result in negative customer outcomes (dissatisfaction, complaint, switching service
providers, and negative word of mouth).
Notably, the antecedents related to service providers or company side of factors, e.g. online
payment problems, and security problems are related to online service platforms, and so they
apply mainly to OSFs not to off-line service failures (Azemi et al., 2019; Holloway et al., 2005).
Further, a lack of compatibility, a sub-factor of customers’ side of factors, is considered to be
more relevant to online purchases and adoption of technology-related service (Kim and Qu,
2014), therefore, this factor is more relevant to OSFs than offline service failures. Hence, our
proposed conceptual model is a unique model to explain OSF phenomenon and is different
from that relevant to offline service failures.

Figure 7.
Conceptual model
JSTP 4. Future research directions
32,6 This structured literature review also suggests directions for future research in the OSF
domain that help accomplish the third research objective. The current study uses the TCCM
framework suggested by Paul and Rosado-Serrano (2019) for proposing future research
directions in the OSF domain. In the TCCM framework, T stands for theory development, C
for context, C for characteristics, and M for methodology (Shaik and Dhir, 2020; Singh and
Dhir, 2019). This framework provides an effective way to identify research gaps and develop
822 future research agendas in a field through the lens of theory, context, characteristics, and
methodology. As a result, several recent SLR papers published in top-rated journals have
tended to adopt the TCCM approach to propose future research directions in the domain (e.g.
Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021; Lim et al., 2021; Rajasekaram et al., 2022; Sureka et al., 2022). The
future research agenda developed using the TCCM framework is discussed below.

4.1 Theory development

The current SLR found that the OSF literature has been largely developed on the theoretical
underpinnings of justice theory, attribution theory, expectation confirmation theory and
equity theory. This suggests that the extant OSF literature has largely overlooked several
promising theoretical frameworks, which can be applied for future research. As such, we
propose three alternative theories for OSF research: persuasion theory, social role theory and
Latent State-Trait (LST) theory. The rationale and potential application of these theories are
given below.
Mata (2022) showed that customers switch following a service failure was due to a poor
explanation given after the service failure. Research has found that customers who are
satisfied with a service provider’s response following a service failure talk favorably to an
average of nine people whereas customers who were dissatisfied with the response talk
unfavorably to an average of 16 people (Newman, 2015; Mata, 2022). With fast growing social
media and Internet facilities, the potential to share such unfavorable stories is much higher.
Against this background, the OSF literature reports a dearth of studies investigating or
exploring the role of explaining the reasons of an OSF and the follow-up process in retaining
customers who experience an OSF. The tenets of persuasion theory will be useful in
understanding the role of explanation in OSF. This theory provides a framework for
influencing a person’s beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations or behaviours through logical
appeal and reasoning. Persuasion theory argues that customers find better-quality and more
detailed explanations more persuasive (Ajzen et al., 1996; Sparks et al., 2013). Therefore,
persuasion theory can be used to cast more light on the response (e.g. explanation and
apology) of a service provider in the event of an OSF. It is reasonable to expect that in OSF
contexts, specific and relevant information will provide stronger and more persuasive
arguments than vague statements, which can be considered analogous to a weaker argument.
Hence, persuasion theory can be applied to the investigation into service recovery approaches
adopted following OSFs.
Further, the literature indicates that females are more cooperative, friendly, unselfish,
concerned with others, and expressive than males (Eagly and Wood, 2016). In this regard,
while men occupy roles that afford greater power and status and behave in an assertive,
directive and autocratic manner, women’s social behavior is more caring and nurturing
(Eagly, 1987). Women’s social behavior signals more concern(s) for others than self
(Ridgeway and Diekema, 1992). Due to the dearth of research findings regarding the gender
differences in OSF literature, this study proposes to use social role theory, which emphasizes
the sex-differentiated behavior in an organization (Eagly, 1987). This theory posits that “since
men and women occupy different social roles, they psychologically behave roles in different
manner in their profession” (Shelton, 1992, p. 408). Hence, service providers can use the
underpinnings of social role theory in developing their service recovery strategies. As women
demonstrate more caring behavior towards others, researchers can investigate whether using Online service
female conversational agents in service recovery strategies to provide apologies, failure
explanations and emotional support to customers produces better outcomes, such as
customer retention, positive word of mouth, repurchase intention and customer engagement
than using male agents. Therefore, the underpinnings of social role theory can be applied to
investigate recovery strategies in OSF contexts.
Moreover, the OSF literature suggests that customers who do not complain about OSFs
are more likely to switch to other service providers (Butler, 2021; Mata, 2022). To overcome 823
this situation, businesses should pay more attention to understanding the factors influencing
customers (not) to complain. Our review of the OSF literature reports that the determinants of
customers’ motivation of not lodging complaints in the event of OSF have not yet been
investigated. The underpinnings of Latent State-Trait (LST) theory will help comprehend the
role of individuals’ latent traits in customer complaint behavior in the event of OSF. LST
theory posits that customer behavior is a function of traits (i.e. individual characteristics, such
as authoritarianism, self-esteem, optimism, introvert/extrovert), state (i.e. environmental
characteristics, such as dependency, opportunity, competition, uncertainty) and/or the
integration of traits and state (Steyer et al., 1999). The theory explains that individuals have a
specific set of characteristics/traits which control their impulses and drive their needs thereby
triggering them to perform a behavior. The literature shows that customers do not exhibit
their complaint behavior unless there is an opportunity to do so (Arnold, 2021). This means
individuals will complain only when the existing environmental conditions are right (i.e.
when individuals see an opportunity to complain) and when their traits support it. Therefore,
LST theory can be used to gain deeper insights into the determinants of customer complaint
behavior, in particular, complainants’ trait(s) which motivate(s) them to complain about an
OSF. Such an investigation can help service providers to handle complaints and offer service
recovery strategies. For instance, if complainants have traits, such as “compassion”,
“flexibility” or “humbleness”, service providers can provide “explanation” or “apology”
following the OSF to address the complainants’ concerns. If the complainants have traits,
such as being “ambitious” or “courageous”, they may be more inclined to complain and expect
a rigorous service recovery process from the service provider. Accordingly, organizations
need to adopt appropriate strategies to deal with complaints depending on customers’
(complainants’) traits. Hence, applying LST theory can help investigate determinants (e.g.
traits) of customers’ complaint behavior in the event of OSFs thereby facilitating strategy
formulation to resolve customers’ concerns.

4.2 Context
The findings of the current SLR show that overall, although empirical research on OSF was
conducted in 17 countries, a larger portion of these studies were based on the data collected in
three countries, i.e. the United States (30.30%), Taiwan (22.72%) and the United Kingdom
(7.57%). Thus, a larger portion of the findings (around 60%) in the domain of OSF are on the
basis of data collected from these three countries, thereby questioning the generalizability of
the results. Therefore, future studies should investigate OSF in other developing and
developed countries that lack representation in the extant OSF literature. Furthermore, the
existing research largely studied OSF in the e-retailing, hospitality and transport settings.
Therefore, future research should examine OSF in other areas, such as B2B service, health
and education.

4.3 Characteristics
Characteristic-specific avenues for future research are described below.
4.3.1 Customers’ complaint behavior in OSF. Service providers should consider customer
complaints seriously as they provide important feedback on unsatisfactory service
JSTP performance and service failures (Mata, 2022). Therefore, examining customer complaint
32,6 behavior would provide some means of addressing OSFs. The offline service failure literature
demonstrates various ways customers can register their complaints. However, the OSF
literature largely ignores customer complaint behavior, and in particular, the process of
registering customer complaints (Li and Fang, 2016). Therefore, investigating customer
complaint behavior and developing a sequential process of lodging complaints can provide
some insights to online service providers.
824 4.3.2 Anthropomorphism and customer reactions in OSF. With the emergence of artificial
intelligence and machine learning, online service providers have started using robotic service
agents, such as chatbots to interact with customers (Prentice and Nguyen, 2021). Some firms
have even started adding anthropomorphic or humanlike features to these robotic agents to
improve customer experience and reduce customers’ uneasiness in online interactions
(Prentice and Nguyen, 2021). Considering the increasing use of anthropomorphic service
agents, a lack of research exists on how anthropomorphism affects customer responses to
OSFs. Research has rarely shown whether adding humanlike features to online service
agents, such as chatbots, mitigates customers’ negative responses to OSFs. Thus,
investigating the effectiveness of these humanlike features in reducing customer negative
responses, such as switching intentions in the case of OSFs can provide insightful
implications for online service providers. Moreover, future studies can examine whether
customer responses to online service agents in OSF contexts vary depending on the gender of
the agents. Specifically, they can investigate whether customers will react differently toward
male and female anthropomorphic chatbots in these contexts.
4.3.3 Customer typology in OSF. Previous research suggests that the preferences of online
customers vary, and as a result, managers use market segmentation to address this
heterogeneity (Bressolles et al., 2014). Studies have proposed online customer typology
frameworks to help managers efficiently segment and target online customer markets
(Ganesh et al., 2010; Gehrt et al., 2012; Kau et al., 2003). However, existing research largely
ignores the application of customer typology to OSF. We believe that different customer
groups will react differently to OSFs, and accordingly, service recovery strategies should
vary across these online customer groups. Thus, studying customer typology in OSF would
help service providers in understanding differences in customer responses across these
customer groups and subsequently using different recovery strategies according to
their group.
4.3.4 Customer misbehavior and OSF. Customer misbehavior is defined as an action that
violates generally accepted standards of behavior, disrupts service encounters/recoveries,
and may cause harm to firms, service employees, and other customers (Benkenstien and
Rummelhagen, 2020). This concept has been extensively studied in the services marketing
domain (Srivastava et al., 2021; Tsaur et al., 2019). For instance, Harris and Dumas (2009)
noted in the online retailing of service, such as music, movies, software, and video games,
customers might misbehave by illegitimately copying them, which cost the retailers billions
of dollars. Research on OSF, however, ignores the effects of customer misbehavior on the
recovery process of OSFs. Therefore, it would be interesting to study customer misbehavior
in the OSF context. Such a study would help online service providers understand how to
respond to customer misbehavior in the OSF context.
4.3.5 Customer innovativeness and OSF. Customer innovativeness refers to a customer’s
predisposition or propensity to adopt new products or a preference for new and different
experiences (Tellis and Yin, 2010). Due to the rapid advancement of information technology,
researchers in the services marketing area have focused on investigating the role of customer
innovativeness in the consumption and use of tech-savvy services, such as mobile banking
and online food delivery services (Chauhan et al., 2019; Hwang et al., 2019). However, the role
of customer innovativeness in OSF has not been studied much. Innovative customers are
more likely to show a favorable attitude towards adopting new technologies, such as web Online service
check-in services. Innovative customers are likely to be more acquainted with emergent failure
technologies, artificial intelligence-based chatbots or self-service technologies to resolve
OSFs. Thus, innovative customers may attempt to resolve OSFs themselves with little
assistance from online service providers making the service recovery process simpler and
faster. Thus, future studies can examine the role of customer innovativeness in OSF and in
the online service recovery process.
825
4.4 Methodologies
Building on our method-wise synthesis of the OSF literature, we portray multiple directions
of future research from a method’s perspective. First, this SLR found that OSF literature
largely adopted a quantitative research method. Table 5 shows that out of 74 studies
shortlisted for this review, 52 studies used a quantitative method and a relatively smaller
number of studies, i.e. 12 studies used qualitative methods, indicating room for more
qualitative studies in the future on OSF. The qualitative research approach is exploratory and
inductive and therefore can provide an in-depth understanding of a phenomenon (Hoepfl,
1997; Van’t Riet et al., 2001). Though OSF has been investigated for the last two decades, there
are still some unexplored issues within this domain, for example, the role of social media
influencers in OSFs. Social media influencers are online personalities with a sizeable number
of followers, either across various social media platforms or on a single social media platform
(Lou and Yuan, 2019). They post content on social media that impacts the decision making of
their followers. Future researchers can initiate a qualitative study to investigate what role
social media influencers can play and how they can be used in developing service recovery
strategies in the context of OSFs.
Second, this literature review found that studies in the OSF domain have rarely adopted
longitudinal designs. Using a longitudinal design provides more valid results over time.
Thus, researchers in future studies in this domain can adopt longitudinal designs, for
example, to understand how customer responses, such as their attitudes, purchase intention
and patronage behavior, to online service providers vary over time due to OSFs. They can
also adopt a longitudinal design to investigate which service recovery strategies have been
effective over time in mitigating negative customer responses to online service providers,
such as brand switching intention.
Finally, there has been a significant upsurge in the use of customer reviews and big data
analytics in marketing and consumer behavior research in recent years. Customers often
share their service failure experiences on online platforms, such as service providers’ social
media pages or websites (Brochado et al., 2017). However, our literature review showed that
OSF research has paid little attention to customer reviews and bigdata analytics. Therefore,
we recommend that in the future, researchers collect bigdata from online sources in the form
of customer reviews. The findings generated from such data will be more generalizable and
can provide an in-depth understanding of various aspects of OSF and recovery strategies to
address OSFs.

5. Academic and practical implications

This SLR offers several academic implications. Firstly, this study systematically reviewed
and synthesized the OSF literature to study its development over time. Although OSF
literature has been growing for more than a decade, it is largely incoherent, and various
strategies are still emerging for addressing issues with OSFs. A few reviews were published
summarizing the literature on service failure (e.g. Baliga et al., 2021; Huang et al., 2020;
Khamitov et al., 2020; Pankratz and Basten, 2013); however, as articulated in section 2.2, their
JSTP scope is limited, for instance, they were limited to B2B (Baliga et al., 2021), information system
32,6 project failure (Pankratz and Basten), brand transgression (Khamitov et al., 2020), reliability
of systems and projects (Huang et al., 2020) and service recovery (Manu and Sreejesh, 2021).
Therefore, OSF literature remains highly fragmented, indicating the need for a synthesized
review. Hence, this SLR analyses the development of OSF literature in terms of publication
outlets, period, countries, theories, contexts and methods.
Secondly, this study strengthens the theoretical base of the OSF literature. This study
826 synthesizes theoretical perspectives used by previous studies to examine OSF. Over the
years, OSF literature has largely developed based on the underpinnings of a few theories;
justice theory, attribution theory, equity theory and expectation confirmation theory.
However, the current review suggests that future studies can use persuasion theory, social
role theory and Latent State-Trait (LST) theory to OSF research. Thus, this study provides
some suggestions to advance the theoretical base of OSF literature in the coming years.
Thirdly, based on the synthesis of the literature, we proposed a framework integrating
widely studied variables in OSF literature. This study classifies antecedents of OSF into the
customers’ role and the service providers’ role. We also synthesized all the service recovery
strategies and showed in the framework as mediators between the causes and outcomes of
OSF. The outcomes of service recovery strategies meted out in the case of OSF were also
shown in the framework. Depending on the effectiveness of these service recovery strategies,
i.e. how online service providers handle OSFs, these outcomes can be divided into positive
and negative. Overall, our study proposes a framework based on the synthesis of the OSF
literature which provides a comprehensive understanding of OSF phenomenon. There have
been a few previous reviews on service failure and service recovery; however, these studies
did not provide any framework (e.g. Gr
egoire and Mattila, 2020) or their conceptual
framework was not as comprehensive as ours (e.g. Van Vaerenbergh and Orsingher, 2016;
Manu and Sreejesh, 2021; Baliga et al., 2021). Thus, this conceptual framework is the first
research effort integrating variables (antecedents, mediators, moderator and consequences)
reported in the OSF literature into one model to provide a nutshell view of OSF phenomenon.
Fourth, a lexicometric analysis was performed to identify clusters of concepts studied
within the OSF literature. As such, the similarity analysis revealed the key themes of the OSF
literature while factorial correspondence analysis helped examine how those themes were
interrelated. Accordingly, as part of SLR, lexicometric analysis provided an in-depth
understanding of the themes in the OSF literature over the years.
Finally, based on the synthesis and review, we identified some gaps in the OSF research
and proposed a set of directions for future research in this domain. These future research
directions are proposed focusing on multiple dimensions: theory, contexts, characteristics
and methods. Pursuing these proposed directions in the OSF research will contribute to
advancing the body of knowledge in this domain in terms of theory, contexts, characteristics
and methods.
In addition to the abovementioned academic implications, this systematic review provides
managerial implications for online service providers. First, based on the synthesis of the OSF
literature, we developed a framework demonstrating antecedents, mediators, moderator and
outcomes of OSFs. As such, all the antecedents were classified into the customers’ role and
service providers’ role, which enables online service providers to understand all sets of
factors driving OSFs. In nutshell form, the framework also synthesizes and shows all the
service recovery strategies (i.e. apology, compensation, faster response time and explanation)
available for them to fix OSFs. Thus, the framework provides interesting insights to online
service providers into factors driving OSFs and strategies available to address them.
Second, “Lexicometric analysis” carried out as part of our review showed the vital role of
online customer support in the event of OSF. Today, there is a possibility that dissatisfied
customers turn to social media platforms to vent their anger. Therefore, it is highly important
for service providers to effectively use online channels to provide increased customer support Online service
as part of the recovery process. For example, to handle customer complaints, online service failure
providers in banking, retailing, insurance and the healthcare industry can use the power of
artificial intelligence in developing online tools, such as multilingual chatbots and voice
assistants. Customer service chatbots and voice assistants can handle customer complaints
in a shorter time, so they should be made available round the clock (24/7). These insights will
help online service providers prevent their customers from switching to competitors.
827
6. Limitations and conclusion
Similar to any other SLRs, this study suffers from a few limitations. First, since the current
SLR followed specific inclusion and exclusion criteria to shortlist the published articles and
examined only articles that met these criteria, the analysis and the findings of this review
cannot be generalized to all OSF literature. Second, this SLR focused only on those papers that
have been published in the English language. As a result, some studies relevant to this
domain that are published in other languages might have been excluded. These limitations
might question the generalizability of the findings.
To conclude, this SLR aimed to provide a systematic review of the extant literature on OSF
and to conduct a thorough analysis of the published journal articles on the topic. First, this
review examined the development of OSF literature in terms of journals in which the articles
are published, methods, theories, most cited articles and research settings. Second, based on
the synthesis of the literature, a conceptual model was developed to understand OSF
phenomenon by integrating antecedents, mediators and consequences studied in the OSF
literature. In pursuance of the final objective, this SLR offered several insightful directions to
advance OSF research by focusing on theories, contexts, characteristics and methods.
Overall, this work advances the understanding of the OSF domain.

Notes
1. Search string used for article search: “Online service failure*” OR “service failure*” AND “e-retail*”
OR “service failure*” AND “online booking*”
2. Gehanno et al. (2013) suggested including Google Scholar in the list of online databases to minimize
the possibility for missing relevant research papers that might not be available on the selected
databases.
3. Australian Business Dean Council
4. Journal Citation Report

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Appendix

No Authors (year) Title Citations1 Journal

1 Dick et al. (2003) Multivariate statistical model for 69 Transportation Research Record
predicting occurrence and location of
broken rails
2 Holloway and Service failure in online retailing: A 626 Journal of Service Research
Beatty (2003) recovery opportunity
3 Holloway et al. The role of cumulative online 224 Journal of Interactive Marketing
(2005) purchasing experience in service
recovery management
4 Harris et al. Consumer responses to service 328 Journal of Business Research
(2006a) recovery strategies: the moderating
role of online versus offline Table A1.
environment Summary of studies
included in the
(continued ) systematic literature
review
JSTP No Authors (year) Title Citations1 Journal
32,6
5 Harris et al. Online service failure, consumer 145 Journal of Services Marketing
(2006b) attributions and expectations
6 Neale et al. (2006) Comparing the diffusion of online 42 Journal of Marketing
service recovery in small and large Management
organizations
838 7 Goetzinger et al. E-customers’ third party complaining 102 International Journal of Service
(2006) and complimenting behaviour Industry Management (now
Journal of Service Management)
8 Mattila et al. The joint effects of service failure 63 Journal of Travel and Tourism
(2009) mode, recovery effort, and gender on Marketing
customers’ post-recovery satisfaction
9 Sparks and Complaining in cyberspace: The 318 Journal of Hospitality Marketing
Browning (2010) motives and forms of hotel guests’ and Management
complaints online
10 Lee and Park Service failures in online double 77 Managing Service Quality: AN
(2010) deviation scenarios: justice theory International Journal (now
approach Journal of Service Theory and
Practice)
11 Chang and Chin Comparing consumer complaint 86 Internet Research
(2011) responses to online and offline
environment
12 Wang et al. (2011) The relationship of service failure 324 International Journal of
severity, service recovery justice and Information Management
perceived switching costs with
customer loyalty in the context of
e-tailing
13 Chang et al. Recovery of online service: Perceived 69 Computers in Human Behavior
(2012) justice and transaction frequency
14 Dabholkar and Service failure and recovery in using 142 The Service Industries Journal
Spaid (2012) technology-based self-service: effects
on user attributions and satisfaction
15 Ekiz et al. (2012) Air the anger: investigating online 146 Journal of Hospitality and
complaints on luxury hotels Tourism Technology
16 Lee and Cude Consumer complaint channel choice 96 International Journal of
(2012) in online and offline purchases Consumer Studies
17 Huang et al. Metamodeling to control and audit e- 11 International Journal of
(2012) commerce web applications Electronic Commerce
18 Lii et al. (2012) Balancing the scales: recovering from 29 The Service Industries Journal
service failures depends on the
psychological distance of consumers
19 Kuo and Wu Satisfaction and post–purchase 353 International Journal of
(2012) intentions with service recovery of Information Management
online shopping websites:
Perspectives on perceived justice and
emotions
20 Lii et al. (2013) The challenges of long-distance 32 Journal of Applied Social
relationships: the effects of Psychology
psychological distance between
service provider and consumer on the
efforts to recover from service failure
21 Mattila et al. The impact of cyberostracism on 43 International Journal of Retail
(2013) online complaint handling Is and Distribution Management
“automatic reply” any better than “no
reply”?

Table A1. (continued )

No Authors (year) Title Citations1 Journal
Online service
failure
22 Piercy and Online service failure and propensity 26 The Service Industries Journal
Archer-Brown to suspend offline consumption
(2014)
23 Kim and Qu Travelers’ behavioral intention 220 International Journal of
(2014) toward hotel self-service kiosks usage Contemporary Hospitality
Management 839
24 Zhao et al. (2014) Influence of coupons on online travel 34 Journal of Hospitality and
reservation service recovery Tourism Management
25 Lopes and Silva The effect of justice in the history of 42 Journal of Retailing and
(2015) loyalty: A study in failure recovery in Consumer Services
the retail context
26 Shiu-Wan et al. Consumers’ satisfaction with online 26 International Journal of Retail
(2015) group buying-an incentive strategy and Distribution Management
27 Ding and Lii Handling online service recovery: 57 Telematics and Informatics
(2016) Effects of perceived justice on online
games
28 Gohary et al. Please explain why it happened! How 80 Journal of Retailing and
(2016) perceived justice and customer Consumer Services
involvement affect post co-recovery
evaluations: A study of Iranian online
shoppers
29 Singh and Managing Online service recovery: 70 Journal of Service Theory and
Crisafulli (2016) procedures, justice and customer Practice
satisfaction
30 Tan et al. (2016) An Exploratory Study of the 107 MIS Quarterly
Formation and Impact of Electronic
Service Failures
31 Fan et al. (2016) Does anthropomorphism influence 86 Journal of Service Management
customers’ switching intentions in the
self-service technology failure
context?
32 Balaji et al. (2016) Determinants of negative word-of 284 Information and Management
mouth communication using social
networking
33 Wang et al. (2016) Electronic and in-person service 20 The Service Industries Journal
quality of hybrid services
34 Li and Fang How online service recovery 18 Service Business
(2016) approaches bolster recovery
performance? A multi-level
perspective
35 Sharifi and Discount reference moderates 15 Journal of Business Research
Aghazadeh customers’ reactions to discount
(2016) frames after online service failure
36 Sreejesh and The impacts of customers’ observed 21 Tourism Review
Anusree (2016) severity and agreement on hotel
booking intentions: moderating role of
webcare and mediating role of trust in
negative online reviews
37 Sharifi et al. The impact of service failure and 19 Journal of Hospitality Marketing
(2017) recovery on target and observing and Management
customers: A comparative study

(continued ) Table A1.

JSTP No Authors (year) Title Citations1 Journal
32,6
38 Albrecht et al. Perceptions of group versus 74 Journal of Service Research
(2017) individual service failures and their
effects on customer outcomes: The
role of attributions and customer
entitlement
840 39 Naumann et al. Exploring customer engagement 37 Asia Pacific Journal of
(2017) valences in the social services Marketing and Logistics
40 Ozuem et al. An exploration of consumers’ 77 International Journal of Market
(2017) response to online service recovery Research
initiatives
41 Chen (2018) How customer participation 22 Journal of Service Theory and
influences service failure attribution Practice
42 Luo and Chea Cognitive appraisal of incident 40 International Journal of
(2018) handling, affects, and post-adoption Information Management
behaviours: A test of affective events
theory
43 Lin et al. (2018) Investigating consumer responses to 11 Internet Research
online group buying service failures:
The moderating effects of seller
offering type
44 Lii et al. (2018) Fair or Unfair: The Moderating Effect 6 Sustainability
of Sustainable CSR Practices on
Anticipatory Justice Following
Service Failure Recovery
45 Zolfagharian Boundary conditions of the effect of 6 Journal of Marketing
et al. (2018) customer coproduction: the case of Management
service failure
46 Rosenmayer et al. Omni-channel service failures and 40 Journal of Services Marketing
(2018) recoveries: refined typologies using
Facebook complaints
47 Vakeel et al. Service failures after online flash 27 Journal of Service Management
(2018) sales: role of deal proneness,
attribution, and emotion
48 Wang and Zhang Does online service failure matter to 30 Journal of Service Theory and
(2018) offline customer loyalty in the Practice
integrated multi-channel context? The
moderating effect of brand strength
49 Azemi et al. An exploration into the practice of 65 Journal of Business Research
(2019) online service failure and recovery
strategies in the Balkans
50 Busser and Role of commercial friendship, 11 Journal of Service Theory and
Shulga (2019) initiation and co-creation types Practice
51 K€ocher and “My bad”: investigating service 3 Journal of Services Marketing
Paluch (2019) failure effects in self-service and full-
service settings
52 Zhang and Shao The Effectiveness of Customer – Sustainability
(2019) Participation and Affective
Misforecasting in Online Post-
Recovery Satisfaction
53 Mohd-Any et al. To fly or not to fly? An empirical 24 Journal of Service Theory and
(2019) study of trust, post-recovery Practice
satisfaction and loyalty of Malaysia
Airlines passengers

Table A1. (continued )

No Authors (year) Title Citations1 Journal
Online service
failure
54 Odoom et al. Service recovery satisfaction in offline 9 Marketing Intelligence and
(2020) and online experiences Planning
55 Reis et al. (2019) Multichannel service failure and 31 International Journal of
recovery in a O2O era: A qualitative Production Economics
multi-method research in the banking
services industry 841
56 Do et al. (2019) Determinants of negative customer 29 Journal of Services Marketing
engagement behaviours
57 Jain and Sharma Negative outcomes of positive brand 25 Journal of Consumer Marketing
(2019) relationships
58 Sangle-Ferriere Friend or foe? Chat as a double-edged 12 Journal of Service Theory and
and Voyer (2019) sword to assist customers Practice
59 Goode (2020) Confront, Accept or Reinterpret? – Journal of Organizational
Coping Mediation Effects on Computing and Electronic
Attribution in Cloud Service Failure Commerce
60 Zhao et al. (2020) To defend or not to defend? How 13 Journal of Interactive Marketing
responses to negative customer
review affect prospective customers’
distrust and purchase intention
61 Cohen et al. (2020) What Retailers Need to Understand 1 Journal of Consumer Affairs
About Website Inaccessibility and
Disabled Consumers: Challenges and
Opportunities
62 Fan et al. (2020) When does technology 53 Journal of Hospitality Marketing
anthropomorphism help alleviate and Management
customer dissatisfaction after a
service failure? – The moderating role
of consumer technology self-efficacy
and interdependent self-construal
63 Das et al. (2020) The mitigating effect of machine 12 Psychology and Marketing
regulatory focus with arousal
-inducing stimuli in service failure
64 Mustafa et al. Understanding the impact of digital 31 International Journal of
(2020) service failure on users: Integrating Information Management
Tan’s failure and DeLone and
McLean’s success model
65 Crisafulli and Service failures in e-retailing: 46 Computers in Human Behavior
Singh (2017) Examining the effects of response
time, compensation, and service
criticality
66 Bacile et al. (2020) The value disruption of uncivil other- 8 Journal of Services Marketing
customers during online service
recovery
67 Dwesar and Does service failure criticality affect 3 Management Decision
Sahoo (2022) global travellers’ service evaluations?
An empirical analysis of online
reviews
68 Joung et al. (2021) Data-Driven Approach to Dual 2 Sage Open
Service Failure Monitoring from
Negative Online Reviews: Managerial
Perspective
69 Casidy et al. Religious Belief, Religious Priming, 4 Journal of Marketing Research
(2021) and Negative Word-of- Mouth in
Everyday Service Failure Encounters

(continued ) Table A1.

JSTP No Authors (year) Title Citations1 Journal
32,6
70 Jafarzadeh et al.All’s well that ends well: Effective 4 Journal of Retailing and
(2021) recovery from failures during the Consumer Services
delivery phase of e-retailing process
71 Halpern and Airport service quality and passenger 7 Research in Transportation
Mwesiumo (2021) satisfaction: The impact of service Business and Management
842 failure on the likelihood of promoting
an airport online
72 Manu et al. (2021) Tell us your concern, and we shall 2 International Journal of
together address! Role of service Hospitality Management
booking channels and brand equity
on post-failure outcomes
73 Ozuem et al. Exploring customers’ responses to 17 Psychology and Marketing
(2021) online service failure and recovery
strategies during Covid-19 pandemic:
An actor–network theory perspective
74 Chen and Wu Understanding the role of webcare in – Enterprise Information System
(2021) the online buying service recovery
context
Table A1. Note(s): 1Based on Google Scholar (24/05/2022)

About the authors

Dr Mohd Adil works as a Senior Assistant Professor at NIT Hamirpur. His present research focuses on
services marketing, sustainable marketing and tourism. He has several publications in journals of repute,
such as International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services,
Food Quality and Preferences, Current Issues in Tourism, Journal of Vacation Marketing, among others.
Mohd Adil is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: profadilmohd@gmail.com
Mohd Sadiq is a Ph.D. scholar in the Marketing Department, University of Otago, Dunedin, New
Zealand. He has researched the area of green marketing and services marketing, publishing on the
subject in reputed journals such as the International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services, Australasian Marketing Journal, among others.
Dr Charles Jebarajakirthy is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing in Griffith Business School, Gold Coast,
Australia. His research interests are in the areas of retailing, technology adoption, and services
marketing. Charles’s research has been published in the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of
Business Research, Journal of Travel Research, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Marketing
Management, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, International Journal of Hospitality
Management, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, and Journal of Strategic Marketing, among others.
Dr Haroon Iqbal Maseeh is a Sessional Lecturer in the Department of Marketing in Griffith
University, Gold Coast, Australia. His research interests include electronic marketing, consumer
privacy, and consumer behaviour. Haroon’s research work has been published in well reputed journals,
including European Journal of Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Business Research,
International Journal of Hospitality Management, and International Journal of Consumer Studies.
Dr Deepak Sangroya is an Associate Professor of marketing at Jindal Global Business School. His
research interests are in the areas of green marketing, B2B marketing and corporate environmental
initiative. Deepak’s research has been published in the Journal of Strategic Marketing, Journal of Cleaner
Production, Organization and Environment among others.
Dr Kumkum Bharti is an Associate Professor in the marketing area at Indian Institute of
Management Kashipur, Uttarakhand (India). Her work has been published in various journals such as
Marketing Intelligence and Planning, International Journal of Market Research, Journal of Retailing and
Consumer Services, Journal of Cleaner Production, among others.

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