Table 6.

Future research directions.

Proposition	Future research avenues	Reference
Proposition 1 Positive and negative emotions can coexist during a CX.	•What kinds of specific consumption situations (e.g. buying a luxurious good vs. a non-luxurious one, a physical good vs. a service or experience) capture blended consumption-related emotions better? •How do customers act when experiencing mixed emotions during a consumption CX? •Which view of emotions (unipolar vs. bipolar) is appropriate in different consumption CXs?	Namkung and Jang (2010)
	•What role does the subjective and objective ambivalence play in consumption CXs? •How can ambivalence or mixed consumption emotions be resolved?	Olsen et al., 2005; Penz, and Hogg (2011); Otnes et al. (1997); Pang et al. (2017); Ruth et al. (2002)
	•What is the relationship between time and blended emotions? How can the association between these two perspectives be quantified? •Do mixed consumption emotions vary in a longitudinal setting?	Maguire and Geiger (2015); Schmalz and Orth (2012); Roster, and Richens (2009)
	•How does the blended emotional experience of indulgent consumption and of non-consumption indulgences happen?	Ramanathan and Williams (2007)
Proposition 2 Under specific consumption situations, positive emotions do not automatically lead to positive consumption outcomes, and negative emotions may not necessarily generate negative consumption outcomes.	•Which positive emotions relate to negative outcomes and which negative emotions relate to positive outcomes? •Do cultural and subcultural factors influence the consumption outcomes of positive and negative emotions? •What role does service recovery play in changing emotions and consumption outcomes?	Pool et al. (2015); Olsen et al. (2005); Chepngetich et al. (2019); Bilgihan et al. (2016); Penz and Hogg (2011); Otnes et al. (1997) DeWitt et al. (2008); Chebat and Slusarczyk (2005)
Proposition 3 Under specific consumption situations, customers' positive or negative emotions, triggered by experiences with a company employee, will not necessarily lead to perceive the company positively or negatively.	•Do customers feel a mixture of emotions towards a company and its employees? •Do customers treat them as two separate entities? •What are the boundary conditions for this situation?	Bansal et al. (2001); Jones and Suh 2000; Mende and Bolton (2011)
	•Does only the last experience with an employee affect customers' repurchase behavior, while the others affect their overall experience with the company? •What are the outcomes of mixed emotions with a company and its service employees (e.g. word-of-mouth, trust, commitment, value, etc.)? •Can longitudinal data provide better results to better understand and track when, why, and the extent to which customers' mixed emotions toward the two entities vary over time? •Do the mixed emotions of these two entities differ across industries (high-tech, hospitality, insurance, banking, etc.) and across cultures?	Jayawardhena et al. (2007); Mende and Bolton (2011) Porath et al. (2010)
	•What are the roles of existing competition and other environmental variables in developing blended emotions toward a company and its employees?	Grigoroudis et al. (2013)
Proposition 4 Customers can regulate their emotional experiences	•What is the impact of service expectations on consumer perceptions and emotions? Investigating the presence of specific emotional reactions to injustice toward other customers and the conditions under which they occur.	Mattila et al. (2014).
	•Explore whether multiple opposite-valence emotions allow greater insight into whether some opposite-valence emotions (e.g., high-arousal emotions) co-occur more frequently than polar opposite emotions.	Larsen and McGraw (2014)
	•Investigate emotions in real time, as service encounters can be emotional rollercoasters and can change. The use of portable neural imaging devices could be used - link these findings to service evaluation and satisfaction.	Maguire and Geiger (2015)
	•Use the MGB model in different contexts (non-restaurant) to assess actual consumption in real-time. Do personal characteristics, i.e. personality, income, and cultural background affect consumption?	Han and Ryu (2012)
	•Use physiological (such as skin arousal or eye detecting software) experiments to measure customer emotions in real time.	Caruelle et al. (2019); Bui and Kemp 2013)
Proposition 5 Emotions are not purely intrapersonal, since social interactions can influence an emotional experience	•What drives group members to feel/show emotion? Measure the motivations and strength of emotional influence.	Goldenberg et al. (2020)
	•Investigate the negative drivers of C2C interaction, i.e. what hinders interaction and which factors moderate the drivers' effects? How do different types of C2C interactions contribute to the customer journey/experience?	Heinonen et al. (2018).
	•Use real time experience rather than recall. Investigate types of social interactions, i.e. interactions with other travelers, cruise staff, and the local community.	Huang and Hsu (2010)
	•Investigate the influences of positive and dysfunctional customers and test them as separate constructs and the frequency of the occurrences. How can this supportive behavior aid consumption and the perceived value of taking a new class? Could C2C be linked to brand communities where the service organization is part of the community?	Jung et al. (2017).
	•Explore intergroup influences, but instead of investigating negative emotions, investigates positive emotions. Different types of negative emotion, such as anger, fear, and sadness could also be used. Customer characteristics could be investigated, i.e. personality types and motivations, as these may affect one's perception of the social or physical environment. •Examine psychological costs in response to other customers' behaviors in service encounters. Explore why other customers' felt and displayed emotions can affect encounter satisfaction negatively.	Lin et al. (2018). Miao et al. (2011)
	•Using the SSQT social-emotional and instrumental scale, investigate variables such as income, the frequency of interaction, and loneliness, which could encourage customers to form supportive relationships.	Rosenbaum and Massiah (2007)
	•Apply the affect theory of social exchange to goods - not services - to examine emotion and third-party customers. Investigate other services (not restaurants) and test their scales and validate.	Sierra and McQuitty (2005)
	•Explore emotions and third-party customers in other service contexts (not restaurants and cafes) such as hospitals, banks, and supermarkets. Explore customer compatibility - does this affect the experience and perception of the service environment? Explore the threshold levels of customers' displayed emotions, i.e. are these a low intensity or positive display of negative emotions?	Tombs and McColl-Kennedy (2013)