Purpose – This paper investigates the role of perceived justice in service consumption/purchase experiences.

Design/methodology/approach – In an initial study, using the critical incident method, we show that customers are strongly concerned by perceived injustice. Their judgments involve the three components of justice described in organizational and service marketing literature: distributive, procedural and interactional justice. We also identify a macro-level justice factor which characterizes the perception of collective practices at the industry level. In an experiment applied to the dining experience, we manipulate distributive, procedural and interactional justice perception to study their impact on service evaluation (quality, value), satisfaction and relationship quality (trust, commitment).

Findings – Contrary to the satisfaction literature, we observe a slight direct effect of justice on satisfaction, but rather indirect impacts through perceived quality (outcome and interaction) and value. Moreover, perception of justice has substantial effects on trust (credibility and benevolence) but not on commitment.

Originality/value – We study the impact of justice in the context of a customer experience evaluation (service delivery) which is not limited to service recovery. We examine the entire evaluation process, including service evaluation (quality, value), satisfaction and relationship quality (trust, commitment).

Key words – Perceived justice, service evaluation, relationship quality.

Paper type – Research paper