It Is not You; It Is Me: The Moderating Effect of Consumers’ Regulatory Focus Orientations in Co-created Service Encounters

While the impact of value co-creation (VCC) on satisfaction has been well established, not much literature is available on the contingent effects of consumers’ individual differences and service outcome on this relationship. This study is among the first to shed light on the moderating effects of regulatory focus orientation of consumers (promotion vs. prevention) and service outcome (failure vs. success), and the mediating effect of expectancy disconfirmation on the relationship between VCC level of services and satisfaction. We employed an experimental design to assess the causal links in the proposed model. The findings suggest that promotion-focused (prevention-focused) customers experience lower (higher) levels of positive disconfirmation which leads to lower (higher) levels of satisfaction in high VCC condition compared to low VCC one. These results indicate that firms need to generate coherence between consumers’ regulatory focus orientation and the VCC level of services.