How personal costs influence customer citizenship behaviors

Many customers engage in customer citizenship behaviors, such as restocking unwanted items, helping other customers, or putting shopping carts back. Although previous research has investigated a variety of antecedents of customer citizenship behaviors, it has not yet considered the personal costs that might inhibit the decision to engage in those behaviors. Using social exchange theory and tested with three experimental studies, this research demonstrates that customers consider their personal cost/benefit trade-off prior to engaging in customer citizenship behaviors. Specifically, perceived self-sacrifice reduces intention to engage in customer citizenship behaviors while awareness of public self-image increases intention. Furthermore, this cost/benefit trade-off between self-sacrifice and public self-image is influenced by peer norms and perceived consequence to the firm.