TOWARDS A DISPOSITIONAL APPROACH FOR INVESTIGATING INDUSTRY EFFECTS IN CONSUMER-FIRM RELATIONSHIPS

Few, if any, past studies have attempted to develop a model to capture and explain industry context variability and hypothesize its effects on consumer-firm relationships. Generally industry effects are ignored, described or explained post hoc. Using the notion of consumers’ dispositions toward a market, we propose a framework for understanding the influence of industry context on consumer satisfaction, trust, value and loyalty in relational exchanges. Specifically, we utilize two dispositional dimensions—consumers’ valence toward the sellers in an industry, and consumers’ marketplace efficacy to capture industry context effects and examine their impact on relational constructs. Using data from consumers in relational exchanges in retail clothing and airline travel industry contexts, we provide an initial test of our framework. Our results show that industry contexts matter and yield significant direct and moderating effects on consumer-firm relationships. The study underscores the promise of a dispositional approach for providing insights for the theory and practice of relationship marketing, resolving outstanding questions, and proposing fruitful areas for further examination.

[1]  Jagdip Singh,et al.  Consumer Trust, Value, and Loyalty in Relational Exchanges , 2002 .

[2]  Hartmut H. Holzmüller,et al.  International marketing managers' cultural sensitivity: relevance, training requirements and a pragmatic training concept , 2001 .

[3]  V. Mittal,et al.  Satisfaction, Repurchase Intent, and Repurchase Behavior: Investigating the Moderating Effect of Customer Characteristics , 2001 .

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

[5]  J. Porac,et al.  Sociocognitive Dynamics in a Product Market , 1999 .

[6]  Mark S. Johnson,et al.  The Different Roles of Satisfaction, Trust, and Commitment in Customer Relationships , 1999 .

[7]  Stephen S. Tax,et al.  Customer Evaluations of Service Complaint Experiences: Implications for Relationship Marketing: , 1998 .

[8]  Stephen S. Tax,et al.  Customer Evaluations of Service Complaint Experiences: Implications for Relationship Marketing , 1998 .

[9]  Tina M. Lowrey,et al.  Toward an understanding of consumer ambivalence. , 1997 .

[10]  Joseph P. Cannon,et al.  An Examination of the Nature of Trust in Buyer–Seller Relationships: , 1997 .

[11]  D. W. Barclay,et al.  The Effects of Organizational Differences and Trust on the Effectiveness of Selling Partner Relationships , 1997 .

[12]  Thomas O. Jones,et al.  Why Satisfied Customers Defect , 1996 .

[13]  C. Fornell,et al.  The American Customer Satisfaction Index: Nature, Purpose, and Findings , 1996 .

[14]  Richard L. Oliver,et al.  Satisfaction: A Behavioral Perspective On The Consumer , 1996 .

[15]  S. Fein.  Effects of suspicion on attributional thinking and the correspondence bias , 1996 .

[16]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  The Behavioral Consequences of Service Quality , 1996 .

[17]  Dawn Iacobucci,et al.  Commercial and Interpersonal Relationships; Using the Structure of Interpersonal Relationships to Understand Individual-to-Individual, Individual-to-Firm, and Firm-to-Firm Relationships in Commerce , 1996 .

[18]  Amy L. Ostrom,et al.  Consumer Trade-Offs and the Evaluation of Services , 1995 .

[19]  S. Hunt,et al.  The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing , 1994 .

[20]  Peter Wright,et al.  The Persuasion Knowledge Model: How People Cope with Persuasion Attempts , 1994 .

[21]  B. Ratchford,et al.  An Empirical Test of a Model of External Search for Automobiles , 1991 .

[22]  M. Hui,et al.  Perceived Control and the Effects of Crowding and Consumer Choice on the Service Experience , 1991 .

[23]  Jagdip Singh.  Industry Characteristics and Consumer Dissatisfaction , 1991 .

[24]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  Just a Mirage: The Search for Dispositional Effects in Organizational Research , 1989 .

[25]  Alice M. Tybout,et al.  Schema Congruity as a Basis for Product Evaluation , 1989 .

[26]  M. Etzel,et al.  The Index of Consumer Sentiment toward Marketing , 1986 .

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

[28]  Neil K. Allison.  A Psychometric Development of a Test for Consumer Alienation from the Marketplace , 1978 .

[29]  M. Zanna,et al.  On the predictive validity of attitudes: The roles of direct experience and confidence1 , 1978 .

[30]  Terry S. Overton,et al.  Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Surveys , 1977 .

[31]  W. J. Lundstrom,et al.  The Development of a Scale to Measure Consumer Discontent , 1976 .

[32]  M. Deutsch,et al.  Perceived dimensions of interpersonal relations. , 1976 .

[33]  E. Rosch,et al.  Family resemblances: Studies in the internal structure of categories , 1975, Cognitive Psychology.

[34]  William R. Darden,et al.  Consumer Attitudes toward Marketing and Consumerism , 1972 .

[35]  Hartmut H. Holzmüller,et al.  Handhabung der kulturellen Heterogenität zur Erzielung von Wettbewerbsvorteilen in internationalen Unternehmen , 2002 .

[36]  E. Nijssen,et al.  A Tale of Two Orientations - Market Orientation and Consumers' Orientation Revisited , 2001 .

[37]  Jagdip Singh,et al.  Agency and trust mechanisms in consumer satisfaction and loyalty judgments , 2000 .

[38]  M. Wedel,et al.  A CROSS -NATIONAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE INDIVIDUAL AND NATIONAL CULTURAL ANTECEDENTS OF CONSUMER INNOVATIVENESS , 1999 .

[39]  Walter Mischel,et al.  Integrating dispositions and processing dynamics within a unified theory of personality: The cognitive–affective personality system. , 1999 .

[40]  Seigyoung Auh,et al.  Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, and the Trust Environment , 1998 .

[41]  Douglas B. Grisaffe,et al.  Antecedents and consequences of customer value : testing an expanded framework , 1998 .

[42]  E. Anderson.  Cross-category variation in customer satisfaction and retention , 1994 .

[43]  S. West,et al.  Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions , 1991 .

[44]  T. Tyler,et al.  The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice , 1988 .

[45]  Albert O. Hirschman,et al.  Exit, Voice, and Loyalty , 1970 .