Matching explanations with regulatory focus

Purpose: The present research examines the interaction between explanation type and regulatory focus on informational justice (IJ) and satisfaction with service recovery. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted two experiments with 538 respondents. Findings: The findings imply that the effectiveness of the explanation type depends on the regulatory focus of the recipient and the severity of the failure. Specifically, with low severity failures, promotion-oriented respondents were sensitive to explanations about why failures happened. Conversely, their prevention-oriented counterparts were sensitive to explanations about how failures happened. With high severity failures, respondents were sensitive to how the failure happened irrespective of their regulatory focus orientation. Moreover, IJ is the psychological mechanism explaining such effects on satisfaction with service recovery. Originality/value: The research contributes to the service recovery literature showing that explanations provided by the service providers should match the regulatory focus of the customers. The study provides new insights to the practicing managers to enhance the effectiveness of the explanations thus reducing recovery dissatisfaction.