Consumers Waiting in Queues : The Role of First-Order and Second-Order Justice

Past research on queuing has identified social justice as an important determinant of consumers' waiting experiences. In queuing settings, people's perception of social justice depends on whether or not the principle of first in and first out (FIFO) has been violated. In this research, we argue that, aside from and independent of the order of service, consumers also care about whether everyone spends approximately equal amount of time waiting before availing of the product or service. When consumers perceive that they have spent more time waiting than others and when they could attribute this injustice to the service provider, they would be less satisfied with the waiting experience. We also argue that adherence to the FIFO principle is a more salient concern to consumers (quot;first-orderquot; justice), and equal waiting time (quot;second-orderquot; justice) matters only when first-order justice is not an issue. Three experiments support the predictions