The role of cognitive dissonance in complaint management system and anticipated satisfaction an examination of information asymmetry

Abstract

Anticipated satisfaction and purchase intention are the two very important variables to be measured in the pre-purchase context. Out of the various factors influencing these two variables, perceived risk becomes a very important factor in pre-purchase. Perceived risk of a consumer can be reduced by a seller s effective complaint management system. Efficiency of complaint management system can be measured through Perceived Recourse and Redress Risk (PRRR). Two more variables that become very important in the pre-purchase stage are cognitive dissonance and perceived value. The thesis is an attempt to study all these variables together and also to analyze if any information asymmetry existed for complaint management system between the customers and the company personnel. The main objective was to find out whether cognitive dissonance and perceived value mediated the relationship between complaint management system, anticipated satisfaction and purchase intention. The study was done on a sample of 600 respondents. These respondents were selected using snowball sampling across five cities namely Chandigarh, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Jalandhar and Ludhiana. The data was analyzed using structural equation modeling and Anova. The results indicated that perceived value mediated the relationship whereas cognitive dissonance did not directly mediate the relationship, it mediated the relationship through perceived value. The dimensions of complaint management system were analyzed that were considered most important by the customers. Furthermore, a gap analysis was done for the different dimensions of complaint management system across which information asymmetry existed. newline