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How Often Versus How Long: The Interplay of Contact Frequency and Relationship Duration in Customer-Reported Service Relationship Strength
Abstract and Figures
This study investigates the effects of customer contact frequency and relationship duration on customer-reported relationship strength (CRRS). We embed our analysis of these two relationship-quantity variables within a larger model that considers the effects of relationship-quality variables—commitment, trust and satisfaction—on CRRS. We additionally control for customer demographics and service type. Using a fully national sample of 591 service consumers, we find that both contact frequency and relationship duration
have a positive effect on CRRS, and that duration moderates the effect of frequency. Specifically, we observe a relationship-maturity effect: for shorter-duration relationships, contact frequency enhances CRRS, but for longer-duration relationships, contact frequency has no effect on CRRS. Furthermore, employing an iso-contact analysis, we find that for relationships with about the same number of total contacts, those with longer duration are perceived to be stronger, while those with greater contact frequency are not.
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... The affect and cognition scales were adapted from Thom 27 (2001); the trust scale was adapted from Dagger et al. 28 (2009), the scale of intention to return was adapted from Balkrishnan et al. 29 (2003), and satisfaction-with-life scale of Diener et al. 1 (1985). ...
... The trust scale was adapted from Dagger et al. 28 (2009) adapted and published in Brazil by Silva et al. 30 (2015) and requested the patient to evaluate the following statements: "This doctor can be trusted", "This doctor can be counted on to do what is right", "This doctor has integrity" and "This doctor is trustworthy". ...
Aim: to evaluate the association of the patients’ perception about dentist’s affect and cognition on trust and, consequently, on intention to return and patient satisfaction with life. Methods: Analytical cross-sectional study conducted in patients’ adults and elderly at of two dentistry clinics in the south of Brazil. Patients had to have a previous relationship with the dentist (at least one previous consult) and 18 years of age or older. The data were collected through self-administrated questionnaire using measures adapted from other research, using structural equation modeling. We test using a chi-square difference test (p-value<0,05). Results: The mean age of the 197 patients was 37.0 years (σ = 15.5). The affect perceived by the patient at the dentist had a positive effect (β = .53) on the trust that the patient develops in relation to the dentist. The same is true for the effect of the rational or cognitive aspects perceived by the patient at the dentist (β = .41). The trust positively influences the patient’s intention to return to that dentist (β = .82). In addition, the intention to return to the dentist positively influences the patient’s satisfaction with life (β = .49). Conclusions: Affective and cognitive aspects positively influenced the patient’s trust in the dentist. The greater the patient’s trust in the dentist, the greater the intention to return to that dentist. Furthermore, a good relationship with the dentist improve the patient’s satisfaction with life.
... To measure the willingness to share waqf information among stakeholders, the constructs have been chosen based on the same criteria, which can influence the waqf stakeholders' willingness to share information. The items in the questionnaire were adopted and combined based on the previous study by Abdul Shukor, S et al. (2019); Mende and Bolton (2011);Dagger et al. (2009) for trust; Morgan et al. (1994) for reciprocity; Morgan et al. (1994) for the construct of commitment. All the items were structured based on five Likert scale items ranging from 1, "strongly disagree," to 5 "strongly agree". ...
Waqf is crucial in providing society with cost-free or affordable services. However, ensuring the sustainability of waqf contributions remains a key challenge. Hence, it is essential to establish a sustainable waqf ecosystem based on information sharing among stakeholders to maximise its societal benefits. This study adopts a quantitative research approach, utilising the information-sharing theory. The analysis employs the SPSS software to conduct Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and assess the construct validity of variables measuring the willingness to share information. The study investigates the impact of trust, reciprocity, and commitment as independent factors on the willingness of waqf stakeholders in Malaysia to share information. A preliminary study was conducted between January and March 2023, involving 78 purposively sampled respondents who were Waqif, Mawquf Alaih, or knew about endowing waqf through the online waqf platform. This preliminary study evaluated the viability and reliability of the instruments used to represent the variables and relationships. The study intends to demonstrate the validity of factors influencing stakeholders' willingness to share information, thereby enhancing Malaysia's waqf co
... We used a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 "strongly disagree" to 5 "strongly agree", to measure the dependent variable "trust", based on scales adapted from Hsiao et al. (2010), Dagger et al. (2009) and Terres and Basso (2018), with the statements "This doctor seems trustworthy", "I think this doctor probably does what is right for his patients", and "I feel I could trust this doctor". ...
Objetivo: A pesquisa busca analisar como características de avaliações online influenciam na construção da confiança do paciente no médico avaliado.Método: Foram realizados dois experimentos fatoriais utilizando avaliações do site Yelp com manipulação da quantidade de estrelas, quantidade de avaliações, conteúdo da mensagem e a quantidade de avaliações escritas pelo avaliador, representando as variáveis valência, volume, calor e competência do médico e experiência do avaliador.Originalidade/Relevância: Com a popularidade das redes sociais, acompanha-se um número cada vez maior de pacientes que recorrem às avaliações online para buscar recomendação antes de consultar com os médicos. A recomendação, presente no boca-a-boca online, é considerada um elemento valioso na construção da confiança, sendo esta variável reconhecida como fundamental na relação médico-paciente.Resultados: No primeiro experimento, a interação entre a valência e volume apresentou um efeito significativo na confiança, demonstrando que o volume fortalecia ou enfraquecia o impacto da valência na confiança, o que corresponde ao efeito moderador proposto na hipótese. No segundo experimento, observou-se efeitos principais entre as variáveis calor, competência e experiência do avaliador na confiança, entretanto, não foi verificada interação 3-way significativa proposta, o que levantou questões interessantes e possíveis explicações. Contribuições teóricas/metodológicas: A pesquisa fornece subsídios para a comunidade científica ao aprofundar o conhecimento na temática de avaliações online no contexto médico, considerando a popularidade dessa ferramenta e a tendência em relação ao crescimento de sites de avaliações de médicos.Contribuições sociais / para a gestão: Os achados da pesquisa podem auxiliar os sites de avaliações e usuários a gerenciarem e utilizarem melhor tais plataformas online por meio das características investigadas.
Purpose
As internet dividends are gradually disappearing, loyalty programs have become the panacea for monetizing traffic, attracting new customers and retaining existing customers. Improving their effectiveness has thus become key to enterprises’ market competitiveness. However, member customers’ hedonic adaptation to this relationship strategy undermines its effectiveness. Based on the hedonic adaptation theory, this study aims to analyze the process of member customers' hedonic adaptation to preferential treatment in loyalty programs and explore the boundary conditions of alleviating this effect.
Design/methodology/approach
This study surveyed 271 member customers in China and tested the hypothesized relationships using structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis.
Findings
Preferential treatment suffers from hedonic adaptation to member customer engagement and customer gratitude, and customer tenure is a key condition for these effects. Customer gratitude is an intermediary mechanism that explains the hedonic adaptation effect of preferential treatment to member customers engagement. In addition, the structural characteristics of loyalty programs form the boundary condition that alleviates hedonic adaptation. The authors found that high-tier and -payment strategies are more likely to mitigate hedonic adaptation of preferential treatment to customer gratitude.
Originality/value
This study elucidates the factors that influence the effectiveness of preferential treatment and provides constructive insights into customer relationship management and for improving enterprise performance.
Purpose
This study develops a conceptual framework to examine (1) whether global retailers' CSR actions in the form of in-kind charitable contribution affect consumers' attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives, (2) whether consumers' attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives affects brand-self connection and (3) whether the cultural factors of self-transcendence and conservation moderate the relationship between consumers' attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives and brand-self connection.
Design/methodology/approach
Data are collected from two culturally diverse countries, the US and China, each of which managed the pandemic in different ways. Before hypothesis testing, the invariance of measures is established. To measure differences between the groups, a multi-group analysis is conducted.
Findings
Global retailers' in-kind charitable contribution is a significant drivers of consumers' attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives, and attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives has a positive effect on consumer brand-self connection. Both of the cultural values, self-transcendence and conservation, moderate the relationship between attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives and brand-self connection. Self-transcendence is a strong moderator in China, whereas conservation moderates strongly in the US. All of the relationships differ significantly between the groups (US versus China).
Originality/value
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate empirically the role of in-kind charitable contribution in creating an attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives that eventually leads to strong brand-self connection in the COVID-19 context. The study provides novel insights into how consumer behavior differs across two significantly different cultures with regard to COVID-19-related CSR. The findings help international marketers manage uncertainties and crisis and to design their CSR-based marketing programs and develop positioning strategies across cultures.
Personal data have become the key to data-driven services and applications whereas privacy requirements are now strongly imposed by regulations. Meanwhile, people find it difficult to understand whether the services and applications handle personal data to comply with their agreements and regulations. Therefore, the need for privacy indicators, which summarize privacy contents as forms of privacy scoring, labels, etc., has increased to empower the users’ rights by providing understandable information about privacy. For firm privacy indicators, proper criteria and methods for evaluating the level of privacy risks and compliance are required. Accordingly, this paper proposes a privacy scoring framework for services in the context of handling personal data, inspired by six standardized indicators. This paper introduces detailed information on standardized indicators and proposes privacy indicators to quantify privacy scores. Also, this paper proposes methods for evaluating privacy policy based on a set of machine learning-based hierarchical binary classifiers and processes for quantifying the level of privacy risks and compliance from privacy-related information. Through analyzing privacy policies and data access lists of more than 10,000 mobile applications on Google Play Store and investigating case studies on privacy scoring of some mobile applications, this paper shows the feasibility of the proposed framework.
Purpose
Integrating uses and gratifications theory with social exchange theory, this study examines the antecedents of online brand community commitment and engagement and their impact on offline purchase intention.
Design/methodology/approach
Purposive sampling was used to administer an online survey to 205 members of a Facebook brand community of a global retailer.
Findings
The results verified the significant influence of online self-congruity on commitment and engagement and confirmed the full mediating role of engagement between commitment and offline purchase intention.
Research limitations/implications
The study focused on a global chain retailer's peer-initiated online brand community as the focal data collection site.
Practical implications
The findings provide several managerial implications that can help retailers understand consumer behaviors in peer-initiated online brand communities.
Originality/value
The study offers insights into the dynamics between individual and group characteristics in online brand communities.
Purpose
In the context of virtual brand communities (VBCs), based on self-determination theory and organizational binary learning (OBL) theory, this study investigates the direct and indirect effects of various dimensions of consumer participation (CP) on firm innovation performance (FIP) and the mediating role of OBL. By introducing the perspective of knowledge absorptive capacity (KAC), this study examines the moderating effect of KAC on the relationship between OBL and TIP.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, 751 samples are collected from Chinese firms, and stratified adjusted regression analysis is used to conduct empirical tests.
Findings
Information provision or co-creation directly affects FIP; the latter is more significant than the former, while social interaction does not directly affect FIP. Exploitative or exploratory learning plays a mediating role in the relationship between information provision or co-creation and FIP. In contrast, exploratory learning plays a mediating role in the relationship between social interaction and FIP. KAC has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between exploitative learning or exploratory learning and FIP. When the firm has a low KAC, the improvement of FIP through exploratory learning is slight.
Originality/value
In VBCs, this study tries to divide the dimensions of CP. It also clarifies the mediating effect of OBL on CP and FIP. In addition, it explores the moderating effect of KAC on OBL and FIP. The conclusions of this study provide theoretical support and practical inspiration for firms to use VBCs to improve FIP.
The authors demonstrate that a target's attitude toward an influencer is affected by both (1) the influence type used by the influencer to achieve the target's compliance and (2) the performance outcomes that result from the behavior adopted by the target in compliance with that influence. Before performance outcomes are known, the target's satisfaction and trust are strongly affected by the type of influence exercised; more dominating influence types result in less positive attitude. When outcomes of compliance become evident, however, favorable outcomes appear to ameliorate negative attitudes, whereas unfavorable outcomes seem to undermine positive attitudes. These findings indicate the significance of performance outcomes for understanding the ramifications of successful influence.
In their study of marketing services relationships, Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpandé (1992) are unable to support a hypothesized link between relational factors (such as clients’ trust in their service providers) and clients’ use of marketing services. This finding runs counter to relationship marketing theory. To explain their result, Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpandé (1992) suggest that, as a relationship becomes more long-term, it becomes prone to negative influences that dampen the positive impact of relational factors. This study replicates and extends Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpandé's (1992) work by examining relationships between advertising agencies and their clients. The results replicate findings on seven of ten hypotheses proposed in the original article. The authors also extend the original study by supporting the general hypothesis that long-term relationships have a negative impact on service use, which dampens the impact of trust. The results shed light on the mediating role that certain “dark side” constructs play in marketing services relationships.
Marketing theory and practice have focused persistently on exchange between buyers and sellers. Unfortunately, most of the research and too many of the marketing strategies treat buyer-seller exchanges as discrete events, not as ongoing relationships. The authors describe a framework for developing buyer-seller relationships that affords a vantage point for formulating marketing strategy and for stimulating new research directions.
Relationship marketing—establishing, developing, and maintaining successful relational exchanges—constitutes a major shift in marketing theory and practice. After conceptualizing relationship marketing and discussing its ten forms, the authors (1) theorize that successful relationship marketing requires relationship commitment and trust, (2) model relationship commitment and trust as key mediating variables, (3) test this key mediating variable model using data from automobile tire retailers, and (4) compare their model with a rival that does not allow relationship commitment and trust to function as mediating variables. Given the favorable test results for the key mediating variable model, suggestions for further explicating and testing it are offered.
The product management form of organization has been around for quite a while; yet little empirical research has been done on product managers. This article reports a study of product managers and some organizational behavior fac tors which contribute to their job satisfaction and job perfor mance. These factors include centralization of decision making, job structure, job scope, role ambiguity, and role conflict. Finally, several suggestions are made for creating an environment more conducive to having product managers who are satisfied with their jobs.
The statistical tests used in the analysis of structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error are examined. A drawback of the commonly applied chi square test, in addition to the known problems related to sample size and power, is that it may indicate an increasing correspondence between the hypothesized model and the observed data as both the measurement properties and the relationship between constructs decline. Further, and contrary to common assertion, the risk of making a Type II error can be substantial even when the sample size is large. Moreover, the present testing methods are unable to assess a model's explanatory power. To overcome these problems, the authors develop and apply a testing system based on measures of shared variance within the structural model, measurement model, and overall model.
The diversity of the service sector makes it difficult to come up with managerially useful generalizations concerning marketing practice in service organizations. This article argues for a focus on specific categories of services and proposes five schemes for classifying services in ways that transcend narrow industry boundaries. In each instance insights are offered into how the nature of the service might affect the marketing task.
The authors integrate theory developed in several disciplines to determine five cognitive processes through which industrial buyers can develop trust of a supplier firm and its salesperson. These processes provide a theoretical framework used to identify antecedents of trust. The authors also examine the impact of supplier firm and salesperson trust on a buying firm's current supplier choice and future purchase intentions. The theoretical model is tested on data collected from more than 200 purchasing managers. The authors find that several variables influence the development of supplier firm and salesperson trust. Trust of the supplier firm and trust of the salesperson (operating indirectly through supplier firm trust) influence a buyer's anticipated future interaction with the supplier. However, after controlling for previous experience and supplier performance, neither trust of the selling firm nor its salesperson influence the current supplier selection decision.