Can I Get a Helping Hand? Maybe Not: Understanding Co-Production in Service Recovery Processes

Despite the importance of co-production in service recovery processes, few studies have examined it so far. Equity theory is applied to hypothesize a negative relationship between co-production in recovery and satisfaction after recovery. Customers’ domain-specific expertise is included as a moderator of this relationship. Moreover, we examine the underlying cognitive process by including procedural justice as mediator. Using a scenario-experiment, we find that, in contrast to former results, customers who coproduce more are less satisfied after recovery. Particularly, we show that customers with high domain-specific expertise should not be required to highly co-produce in a recovery. These findings enable managers designing better recovery processes