Technology Leadership, Brand Equity, and Customer Loyalty towards Fintech Service Providers in China

China claims the world's largest mobile payments market and serves as the global benchmark for other markets to pursue. As the battle over the Chinese mobile wallet market wages on, the gap between leading players WeChat Pay (owned by Tencent) and Alipay remains narrow. Based on brand equity theory and symbolic value theory, a research model is proposed to investigate the relationship between Fintech’s technology leadership, brand equity, and customer loyalty. The results show that Alipay provides more innovative and diversified financial services and outperforms WeChat Pay in technology leadership. The study confirms that technology leadership positively affects brand equity, which in turn positively affects customer loyalty. The boundary condition for different type of customers is considered and implications for theory and practice are also discussed.

[1]  Mary W. Sullivan,et al.  The Measurement and Determinants of Brand Equity: A Financial Approach , 1993 .

[2]  Tao Zhou,et al.  An empirical examination of continuance intention of mobile payment services , 2013, Decis. Support Syst..

[3]  C. Fornell,et al.  Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. , 1981 .

[4]  Linda L. Price,et al.  An Investigation into the Social Context of Early Adoption Behavior , 1992 .

[5]  Herbjørn Nysveen,et al.  This is who I am ” : Identity Expressiveness and the Theory of Planned Behavior Forthcoming in Psychology & Marketing , 2015 .

[6]  Richard P. Bagozzi,et al.  The Role of Signaling Identity in the Adoption of Personal Technologies , 2014, J. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[7]  R. Oliver.  Whence Consumer Loyalty? , 1999 .

[8]  Bernard J. Jaworski,et al.  Strategic Brand Concept-Image Management , 1986 .

[9]  Rachel L. Ruttana,et al.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes , 2018 .

[10]  Gert Jan Hofstede,et al.  Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, 3rd ed. , 2010 .

[11]  Charles J. Kacmar,et al.  Developing and Validating Trust Measures for e-Commerce: An Integrative Typology , 2002, Inf. Syst. Res..

[12]  Ephraim R. McLean,et al.  The DeLone and McLean Model of Information Systems Success: A Ten-Year Update , 2003, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[13]  Mark Colgate,et al.  Customer Value Creation: A Practical Framework , 2007 .

[14]  Naveen Donthu,et al.  An examination of selected marketing mix elements and brand equity , 2000 .

[15]  Fred D. Davis.  Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology , 1989, MIS Q..

[16]  Marko Sarstedt,et al.  PLS-SEM: Indeed a Silver Bullet , 2011 .

[17]  Xin Luo,et al.  Examining multi-dimensional trust and multi-faceted risk in initial acceptance of emerging technologies: An empirical study of mobile banking services , 2010, Decis. Support Syst..

[18]  Gordon B. Davis,et al.  User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward a Unified View , 2003, MIS Q..

[19]  Gi Mun Kim,et al.  Understanding dynamics between initial trust and usage intentions of mobile banking , 2009, Inf. Syst. J..

[20]  Jennifer Edson Escalas,et al.  Self‐Construal, Reference Groups, and Brand Meaning , 2005 .

[21]  A. Herrmann,et al.  The Evolution of Loyalty Intentions , 2006 .

[22]  Kevin Lane Keller.  Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity , 1993 .

[23]  Richard J. Lutz,et al.  An Exploration of the Effects of Perceived Social and Performance Risk on Consumer Information Acquisition , 1974 .

[24]  Tao Zhou,et al.  Integrating TTF and UTAUT to explain mobile banking user adoption , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[25]  I. Ajzen.  The theory of planned behavior , 1991 .

[26]  Kar Yan Tam,et al.  Understanding the Adoption of Multipurpose Information Appliances: The Case of Mobile Data Services , 2006, Inf. Syst. Res..

[27]  Viswanath Venkatesh,et al.  Effects of ICT Service Innovation and Complementary Strategies on Brand Equity and Customer Loyalty in a Consumer Technology Market , 2014, Inf. Syst. Res..

[28]  J. Jacoby,et al.  The Components of Perceived Risk , 1972 .

[29]  Sang-Chul Lee,et al.  Determinants of behavioral intention to mobile banking , 2009, Expert Syst. Appl..

[30]  A. B. D. Río,et al.  The effects of brand associations on consumer response , 2001 .

[31]  Dale Goodhue,et al.  Task-Technology Fit and Individual Performance , 1995, MIS Q..

[32]  Xuan Tian,et al.  Does Banking Competition Affect Innovation , 2015 .

[33]  Monika Richter,et al.  Methods And Data Analysis For Cross Cultural Research , 2016 .

[34]  Neil A. Morgan,et al.  Consumer-Based Brand Equity and Firm Risk , 2009 .

[35]  Soon Jae Kwon,et al.  Effect of trust level on mobile banking satisfaction: a multi-group analysis of information system success instruments , 2009, Behav. Inf. Technol..