A more comprehensive understanding and measure of customer helping behavior

We develop a more comprehensive measure of discretionary, extra-role behaviors that customers engage in to help a company. While customer helping behaviors have been studied previously, attempts to develop valid measures have been limited. We use the validation process for the Organizational Citizenship Behavior scale as a model to develop and validate a new scale measuring a comprehensive range of customer helping behaviors. We identify multiple dimensions of customer helping behaviors that are engaged in by the same customers, driven by the same antecedents, and collectively form a helping behaviors scale. Using student samples and customers of a non-profit organization, we demonstrate a consistent scale structure, reliability, and nomological and external validity. We present two variations of the scale, one for for-profit companies and one for non-profit organizations. This scale is intended to be used as a dependent behavioral measure to enable researchers to capture multiple customer helping behaviors.

[1]  Charles H. Noble,et al.  How to give and receive: An exploratory study of charitable hybrids , 2002 .

[2]  C. Bhattacharya,et al.  Antecedents and consequences of customer-company identification: expanding the role of relationship marketing. , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[3]  R. Kozinets.  The Field behind the Screen: Using Netnography for Marketing Research in Online Communities , 2002 .

[4]  S. Fournier,et al.  Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research , 1998 .

[5]  Michèle Paulin,et al.  Service climate and organizational commitment: The importance of customer linkages , 2006 .

[6]  Peter A. Dacin,et al.  Spreading the word: Investigating antecedents of consumers’ positive word-of-mouth intentions and behaviors in a retailing context , 2005 .

[7]  L. J. Harrison‐Walker.  The Measurement of Word-of-Mouth Communication and an Investigation of Service Quality and Customer Commitment As Potential Antecedents , 2001 .

[8]  P. Aggarwal.  The Effects of Brand Relationship Norms on Consumer Attitudes and Behavior , 2004 .

[9]  Thomas L. Baker,et al.  Promoting Ethical Behavior and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: The Influence of Corporate Ethical Values , 2006 .

[10]  T. S. Bateman,et al.  Job Satisfaction and the Good Soldier: The Relationship Between Affect and Employee “Citizenship” , 1983 .

[11]  Adrian. Sargeant,et al.  Trust and relationship commitment in the United Kingdom voluntary sector: Determinants of donor behavior , 2004 .

[12]  L. Coote,et al.  A study of organizational citizenship behaviors in a retail setting , 2005 .

[13]  E. Rogers,et al.  LIVING RESEARCH METHODS OF MEASURING OPINION LEADERSHIP , 1962 .

[14]  Audrey Guskey,et al.  The Relationship between Alumni and University: Toward a Theory of Discretionary Collaborative Behavior , 1998 .

[15]  Donald R. Lichtenstein,et al.  The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility on Customer Donations to Corporate-Supported Nonprofits , 2004 .

[16]  D. Organ.  Organizational Citizenship Behavior: It's Construct Clean-Up Time , 1997 .

[17]  J. Aaker,et al.  When Good Brands Do Bad , 2004 .

[18]  J. McAlexander,et al.  Building Brand Community , 2002 .

[19]  J. Nunnally.  Psychometric Theory (2nd ed), New York: McGraw-Hill. , 1978 .

[20]  Ian R. Gellatly,et al.  Affective and continuance commitment to the organization: Evaluation of measures and analysis of concurrent and time-lagged relations. , 1990 .

[21]  David L. Mothersbaugh,et al.  The Positive and Negative Effects of Switching Costs on Relational Outcomes , 2007 .

[22]  P. Verhoef.  Understanding the Effect of Customer Relationship Management Efforts on Customer Retention and Customer Share Development , 2003 .

[23]  H. Rao,et al.  Understanding the Bond of Identification: An Investigation of its Correlates among Art Museum Members: , 1995 .

[24]  Gilbert A. Churchill.  A Paradigm for Developing Better Measures of Marketing Constructs , 1979 .

[25]  Linda L. Price,et al.  The market maven: A diffuser of marketplace information. , 1987 .

[26]  Neeli Bendapudi,et al.  Enhancing Helping Behavior: An Integrative Framework for Promotion Planning , 1996 .

[27]  P. Bentler,et al.  Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis : Conventional criteria versus new alternatives , 1999 .

[28]  Lynette S. Unger,et al.  Altruism as a motivation to volunteer , 1991 .

[29]  N. Waller.  The Effect of Inapplicable Item Responses on the Structure of Behavioral Checklist Data: A Cautionary Note. , 1989, Multivariate behavioral research.

[30]  Linda L. Price,et al.  Everyday Market Helping Behavior , 1995 .

[31]  Jon M. Werner,et al.  Managerial ratings of in-role behaviors, organizational citizenship behaviors, and overall performance: testing different models of their relationship , 2001 .

[32]  M. Clark,et al.  Measurement of communal strength , 2004 .

[33]  W. Bearden,et al.  The use of expert judges in scale development: Implications for improving face validity of measures of unobservable constructs , 2004 .

[34]  James C. Anderson,et al.  STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING IN PRACTICE: A REVIEW AND RECOMMENDED TWO-STEP APPROACH , 1988 .

[35]  Douglas C. West,et al.  Perceptual determinants of nonprofit giving behavior , 2006 .

[36]  Dennis W. Organ,et al.  COGNITIVE VERSUS AFFECTIVE DETERMINANTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR , 1989 .

[37]  David S. Ackerman,et al.  The Effects of Recognition and Group Need on Volunteerism: A Social Norm Perspective , 1998 .

[38]  C. W. Park,et al.  The Ties That Bind: Measuring the Strength of Consumers’ Emotional Attachments to Brands , 2005 .

[39]  David A. Harrison,et al.  Volunteer Motivation and Attendance Decisions: Competitive Theory Testing in Multiple Samples From a Homeless Shelter , 1995 .

[40]  Nikos Tsikriktsis,et al.  A review of techniques for treating missing data in OM survey research , 2005 .

[41]  Markus Groth.  Customers as Good Soldiers: Examining Citizenship Behaviors in Internet Service Deliveries , 2005 .

[42]  Dwayne D. Gremler,et al.  Generating positive word‐of‐mouth communication through customer‐employee relationships , 2001 .

[43]  S. Beatty,et al.  Service worker role in encouraging customer organizational citizenship behaviors , 2009 .