A netnographical approach to typologizing customer engagement and corporate misconduct

Customer engagement has important implications for the organization. The study developed a typology to understand customer engagement and its relationship with corporate misconduct. Customer engagement is categorized into co-developing, augmenting, influencing, and mobilizing behaviors, which are typologized into organizational and peer engagement, with co-developing and augmenting behaviors classified as organizational engagement, and the remaining two as peer engagement. In view of a focus on negative engagement in the case of corporate misconduct in previous research, this study deployed a netnographical approach to exploring positive and neutral engagement within the organization and with peers. The findings indicate that corporate misconduct not only elicits a negative response but may also elicit positive or indifferent engagement behaviors. This study contributes to customer engagement and corporate misconduct research by delving into under-explored aspects of consumer behavior.

Automated summary

Customer engagement is categorized into organizational and peer engagement, with negative corporate misconduct potentially eliciting positive or indifferent engagement behaviors. This study contributes to research by exploring under-explored aspects of consumer behavior.