Purpose
Given the growing prevalence of gun control policies in service settings, this study aims to investigate how the adoption of a gun control policy by a service businesses influences consumers’ evaluations of the service businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
Three experiments were conducted to examine how the adoption of a gun control policy by a service businesses influences consumers’ brand favorability of that service businesses and how value congruence (i.e. the alignment between a consumer’s own personal values and perceptions of the brand’s values) is the underlying mechanism.
Findings
This study documents several major findings. First, the authors find that the adoption of a gun control policy by a service businesses increases consumers’ brand favorability. Second, the authors highlight a boundary condition to this effect, such that a gun control policy actually decreases consumers’ brand favorability for people high (vs low) in support for gun rights. Third, the authors show that value congruence is the psychological process underlying these effects. Fourth, the authors generalize the focal effects to a real-world brand and demonstrate that the adoption of a gun control policy increases brand favorability for consumers low (vs high) in patronage behavior of the brand. Finally, the authors find that a pioneer brand strategy in the adoption of a gun control policy significantly increases brand favorability, whereas a follower brand strategy in the adoption of such a policy is less effective.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to provide critical insight to service businesseses as to how their position regarding guns influences consumers’ evaluations of the service businesses.
Policy Spillover and Gun Migration: The Interstate Dynamics of State Gun Control Policies*