From the repertoire of consumer behavior: retaliation and revenge in cyberspace

Abstract

Computer-mediated communication in cyberspace empowered consumers to build their own websites and gather with other consumers in virtual communities to publicly accuse, protest and repudiate companies, brands, products or services for problems realized in commercial transactions. Our research addresses a gap in the consumer behavior and virtual communities literatures - that of the presence of retaliation and revenge in anti-brand virtual communities. Starting from a previous investigation on the motivations for retaliation and revenge, we now search for actual retaliation and revenge behaviors in those communities. By means of a netnographic perspective, four communities of telecom consumers were addressed and provided data to identify four retaliation behaviors and five revenge behaviors, three of which are assumed to be unprecedented.