Fostering Customer Citizenship Behaviors for Service Firms: A Conceptual Model of Service Encounter Antecedents

While customer citizenship behavior has increasingly been studied as a form of customer contribution of values to service firms, less attention has been paid to the service interaction moments. With a focus on service interaction encounters, this study conceptually discusses influences of the factors pertaining to service encounters in service environments including service atmospherics, customer empowerment, employee support, and relationship marketing investment on customer’s performance of specific types of customer citizenship behaviors. The study also discusses the mediating role of service experience quality in these linkages. With the proposed theoretical framework, the study extends the literature of service management and customer behavioral studies. The framework and discussions from the study also offer useful managerial implications for service firms in an attempt to optimize customer experiences during service interactions and so catalyzing positive customer behaviors.