Citizens blame agencies and spread negative word-of-mouth after experiencing a public service failure? Results from an online experiment

Drawing upon social exchange theory, as well as culpable control and attribution theory, this article investigates the impact of service failure responsibility and prior public service failure on the emotional responses of individuals experiencing a public service failure. Although there are many types of emotional responses, two relevant to government are studied: blame and negative word-of-mouth. In order to examine service failure responsibility, public service failure, and emotional responses, an online survey experiment was conducted. The results are largely consistent with theoretical expectations. Respondents experiencing a public service failure were more likely to blame the agency and state that they would speak negatively about the agency under high service failure responsibility conditions and/or high prior public service failure conditions. Relationships between high/low service failure responsibility and high/low prior public service failures were also found in the study. These findings are thoroughly discussed in the paper.