Consumerism dominates the way businesses wish to perceive themselves to the public as. As such, businesses tend to develop social relationships with its customers. These relationships set up the bases on which the consumer judges the company; whether or not these brands (businesses) are viewed as family helping the consumer achieve a higher state, or are viewed as a businessperson who is only concerned about money. A study by Pankaj Aggarwal in 2004, proposed that “when consumers form relationships with brands they use norms of interpersonal relationships as a guide in their brand assessment.” When Aggarwal proposed this concept, he ran several 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial designs to determine what interpersonal relationship left a positive attitude on the consumer. The experiment tested several aspects of a communal and exchange relationship between the consumer and the brand. Aggarwal created a scenario in which participants read about the experience of an individual at a particular brand (i.e. bank, health club, coffee shop, etc.), where
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There were four total scenarios; two communal relationships and two exchange relationship. Each relationship aforementioned contained one high distributive fairness and one low distributive fairness. The scenarios presented focused on a large fictitious brand to represent the exchange relationship and on a small fictitious “mom and pop” shop to represent the communal relationship. In low fairness and high fairness, both examples will have a scenario between a customer waiting for a service and the two employees where one has more authority than the other. In the low fairness scenario, the employee will be treated unfairly while the customer is present and the high fairness scenario will be treat fairly while the customer is waiting for the completion of their services. A questionnaire regarding the interaction between customer, and the two employees is also
There were four total scenarios; two communal relationships and two exchange relationship. Each relationship aforementioned contained one high distributive fairness and one low distributive fairness. The scenarios presented focused on a large fictitious brand to represent the exchange relationship and on a small fictitious “mom and pop” shop to represent the communal relationship. In low fairness and high fairness, both examples will have a scenario between a customer waiting for a service and the two employees where one has more authority than the other. In the low fairness scenario, the employee will be treated unfairly while the customer is present and the high fairness scenario will be treat fairly while the customer is waiting for the completion of their services. A questionnaire regarding the interaction between customer, and the two employees is also