Conference proceeding
The Effect and Consequences of Business Size on Service Employee Dehumanization
Advances in consumer research, Vol.51, pp.585-586
01/01/2023
Abstract
Pecoy et al investigate how business size affects consumers' perceptions of and interactions with service employees. Prior research has found that consumers believe employees of larger (vs smaller) companies are less intrinsically motivated. Generally, large businesses are viewed less favorably than their small counterparts, and employees of large (vs small) businesses are thought to be more interchangeable. In light of this, they propose that consumers perceive service employees of a large business as "less human" relative to service employees of a small business. Dehumanization, or the sub-human perception of another, is partially caused by the perception that one is interchangeable. Specifically, they investigate mechanistic dehumanization, the act of treating humans like machines. Across three studies, they find that business size affects mechanistic dehumanization of service employees, which, in turn, may have important downstream consequences, like consumers' reluctancy to initiate a casual conversation with the employee. They find that allowing service employees to express their individuality attenuates the effect of business size on dehumanization.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The Effect and Consequences of Business Size on Service Employee Dehumanization
- Creators
- Michael PecoyAndrea LuangrathBowen RuanSarah Luebke
- Resource Type
- Conference proceeding
- Publication Details
- Advances in consumer research, Vol.51, pp.585-586
- Publisher
- Association for Consumer Research
- ISSN
- 0098-9258
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 01/01/2023
- Academic Unit
- Marketing
- Record Identifier
- 9984774239902771
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