Based on the stimulus-organism-response model, this research proposes a model that illustrates the effect of perceived interactivity on brand community members’ attitudes toward the site and brand community relationships. This research recruited 425 Facebook Fan Page (FBFP) users for a survey study, and structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses. The results show that perceived interactivity (i.e., perceived control, perceived responsiveness, and perceived communication) positively influences users’ attitudes toward using an FBFP, which subsequently positively influences customer–brand, customer–product, customer–company, and customer–other customer relationships. This research advances the literature on virtual communities and brand communities by demonstrating how perceived interactivity affects users’ attitudes toward FBFPs and the impact of users’ attitudes toward FBFPs on brand community relationships. The findings provide managerial implications in regard to interacting with members and building brand community relationships.

This research investigates the impact of service failure severity on consumers’ negative emotion (anger) and coping behaviors (revenge and avoidance) in the context of mobile application service failure. It also identifies the moderating role of technology anxiety on the relationship between service failure severity and blame attribution. The sample for this study consisted of users who had experienced a mobile application service failure in Taiwan. This study distributed online surveys to potential respondents via MySurvey, an online survey distribution platform. Seven hundred and thirty-one mobile application users participated in this study. This study adopted Structural Equation Modeling to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that service failure severity positively affected blame attribution and, thus, amplified the anger of negative emotion. Revenge and avoidance occurred. Technology anxiety had a moderating effect on the relationship between service failure severity and blame attribution.

Purpose: This research investigates the role of customer forgiveness as the result of online service recovery transparency in predicting customer engagement. It also examines the moderating roles of timeliness and personalization in this proposed model.Design/methodology/approach: An online survey study using retrospective experience sampling and a scenario-based experimental study were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.Findings: Customer forgiveness positively influences customer engagement and plays a mediating role in the relationship between service recovery transparency and customer engagement. Additionally, timeliness and personalization moderate the positive influence of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness. The positive influence of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness is more apparent when levels of timeliness and personalization decrease.Practical implications: To retain focal customers' engagement after a service failure, firms must obtain their forgiveness. One of the firm's online complaint handling strategies to increase the forgiveness level of focal customers is to provide a high level of service recovery transparency (i.e. responding to their complaints in a public channel), especially when the firm is unable to respond to online complaints quickly or provide highly personalized responses.Originality/value: This research provides new insights into the underlying mechanism of customer engagement by applying the concept of customer forgiveness. It also contributes to the social influence theory by applying the essence of the theory to explain how other customers' virtual presence during the online complaint handling influences the forgiveness of focal customers in order to gain their engagement. Additionally, it provides insight into the conditions under which the role of service recovery transparency can be very effective in dealing with online complaints.