Correspondence: Mumin Dayan, Department of Business Administration, College of Business & Management, PO Box 27272, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE. Tel: +97165052528; Fax: +97165050100; e-mail: mdayan@sharjah.ac.ae

¹is currently working as an assistant professor of Marketing at the College of Business Administration, University of Sharjah. He received an MBA degree from Drexel University and a PhD degree from Temple University. His research interests are social and cognitive psychology of new product development teams, innovations in retail banking sectors and knowledge management. His research papers have been published or accepted for publications in journals such as Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing and European Journal of Innovation Management.

²is an associate professor of Finance at Sharjah University, where he teaches financial management, corporate finance, investments, personal finance, portfolio management and financial markets. His current research interest focuses on capital budgeting, capital structure, risk management, financial performance and behavioural finance.

³has worked as a foreign project manager in Awqaf General Trust in Sharjah, UAE since 2003. He received his bachelor of law from the International University of Africa, Sudan and his EMBA degree from the University of Sharjah, UAE.

Received 23 August 2007; Revised 23 August 2007.

Abstract

In this study, the impacts of the three dimensions of justice (distributive, interactional, and procedural) on customers' post-complaint behaviour (ie exit vs loyalty) of both conventional and Islamic banks in the UAE were investigated. The results showed that interactional justice (eg courtesy) and distributive justice (eg refund) play predominant roles, since they impact both positive and negative emotions and the exit-loyalty behaviour of customers regardless of the type of bank (conventional or Islamic). The results show, however, that procedural justice (eg timeliness) has no impact on either negative or positive emotions and the exit-loyalty behaviour of either conventional bank customers or Islamic bank customers. The results were interpreted in terms of cultural context and in terms of managerial implications for conventional and Islamic banks that are mostly dealing with complaint handling and employee training. The limitations of this study are also discussed at the end.