How, when, and why do stores’ humor climates affect retail customer purchase?

ABSTRACT

This study examines the influence of affiliative and aggressive humor climate levels and variability of humor climates on customer purchase, and the mediating effect of customer perceptions of service quality on such relationships. Sixty-seven store managers assessed 615 employees’ use of humor, while 3533 customers were surveyed to assess the quality of service received and their purchase behavior. Results show that a high affiliative humor climate was associated with a decrease in customer perceptions of service quality when variability in this humor usage was low in stores. Furthermore, high usage of aggressive humor was associated with a decrease in customer purchase.

Disclosure statement

The author want to thank reviewers for their useful comnents and suggestions, and Saad-Ellah Berhili for his valuable research assistance.

Additional information

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and /or publication of the article. The work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (grant number 435-2018-153).