Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
2-2025
Abstract
Extant research suggests that higher levels of customer and employee satisfaction signal a firm’s competitive advantage, resulting in greater firm value. This article advances the understanding of how firms can manage customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction to increase shareholder wealth in a new environment due to the emergence of social media and a new class of retail investors. Drawing from stakeholder theory and signaling theory, we argue that inconsistency in customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction can be informative to investors and lead to greater shareholder wealth in such a new environment. Our findings demonstrate that there is a negative joint effect of the two on shareholder wealth, such that unanticipated increases in employee satisfaction reduces shareholder wealth when customer satisfaction has also increased. Social media visibility and industry concentration are two key moderators that strengthen the negative joint effect. Our study provides important theoretical implications and valuable suggestions to managers to determine what their satisfaction indicators communicate in a new era where social media and the retail investor class have gained outsized importance.
Keywords
Shareholder wealth, Customer satisfaction, Employee satisfaction, Social media, Marketing-finance interface
Discipline
Finance and Financial Management | Marketing
Research Areas
Marketing
Publication
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
First Page
1
Last Page
22
ISSN
0092-0703
Identifier
10.1007/s11747-025-01087-4
Publisher
Springer
Citation
ZAMUDIO, Cesar; MAH, Suyun; and SWAMINATHAN, Vanitha.
Old signals, new era: Reconsidering how customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction impact shareholder wealth. (2025). Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 1-22.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7689
Copyright Owner and License
Author-CC-BY
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-025-01087-4
