Building customers’ resilience to negative information in the airline industry

Abstract

This study aims to model the conditions that lead to existing customers’ resilience to negative information in the context of the airline industry. In doing so, the study examines the role of electronic word-of-mouth, considering the commitment-consistency principle. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis is employed along with structural equation modeling. Interaction effects are also studied. The structural equation modeling results show that electronic word-of-mouth influences resilience to negative information directly and indirectly (through the mediation of customer-brand identification). The results of the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis show that customer-brand identification must be combined with electronic word-of-mouth to achieve high resilience to negative information. The combination of self-brand congruity with electronic word-of-mouth can also be sufficient to obtain this outcome. The interaction analysis provides additional support for the amplifying effect of electronic word-of-mouth.