ABSTRACT

This chapter builds on the prior two chapters, which concern the nature of the positive and negative relationships between customers and the people and organizations that deliver service to them. We learned in those chapters that relationships take on positivity or negativity primarily as a function of episodes that occur between deliverer and customer. Conceptualized within the social exchange framework (Blau, 1964), both chapters present the idea that when people experience fair/unfair treatment in the exchange they react positively/negatively. The people of interest in both cases are the employees who deliver service to customers and the customers themselves. So, both chapters (as in the rest of the chapters in the book) focus on the interpersonal nature of relationships; for the prior two chapters the focus is with regard to relationships in the delivery and consumption of services.