Confucian value's influences on Chinese customer relationships in product crisis recovery

Confucian value has been a topic of increased discourse amongst business and management literature and has important influence on Chinese consumers' customer relationships in the context of product crises. This paper focuses on the effect that Confucian value has on customer loyalty and forgiveness. The mediation of empathy and attribution, and the moderation of purchase experience, country of manufacture, and perceived severity are also considered. The results show that Confucian value has a positive influence on customer loyalty and forgiveness; empathy and attribution play a mediated role; and purchase experience and perceived severity has a moderation effect. This paper suggests that European companies should design campaign remedies from the perspective of Confucian cultural value to prime consumer empathy and unstable attribution.