• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.204-226
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• 2023

One of the most important types of Customer Empowerment Strategy (CES) is select empowerment, where firms allow customers to vote on a product to be marketed. However, there is limited research on the advantages and disadvantages of select empowerment. In particular, there are few studies on the composition of a voting system. This study analyzes customer participation behavior, such as willingness to vote and strategic voting (i.e., voting for candidates not based on utility orders), under the different voting systems: 1) the number of votes per customer (single or multiple), and 2) the number of final choices (single or multiple). Uncertainty is proposed as a mediator that links the voting system difference and customer participation. Two research hypotheses are tested using multiple linear regression analysis and a natural effects model based on data from two online experiments. As a result, the multiple voting system (i.e., multiple winners are selected by customer votes) shows a direct positive effect on willingness to vote and strategic voting behavior. In addition, the result shows that uncertainty insignificantly mediates the relationship between the voting system and customer participation. Academic and managerial contributions are discussed with several future research directions.