Customer value,satisfaction, loyalty,and switching costs: An illustration from a business-to-business service context

Although researchers and managers pay increasing attention to customer value, satisfaction, loyalty, and switching costs, not much is known about their interrelationships. Prior research has examined the relationships within subsets of these constructs, mainly in the business-to-consumer (B2C) environment. The authors extend prior research by developing a conceptual framework linking all of these constructs in a business-to-business (B2B) service setting. On the basis of the cognition-affect-behavior model, the authors hypothesize that customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between customer value and customer loyalty, and that customer satisfaction and loyalty have significant reciprocal effects on each other. Furthermore, the potential interaction effect of satisfaction and switching costs, and the quadratic effect of satisfaction, on loyalty are explored. The authors test the hypotheses on data obtained from a courier service provider in a B2B context. The results support most of the hypotheses and, in particular, confirm the mediating role of customer satisfaction. Shun Yin Lam (asylam@ntu.edu.sg; fax: 65-6791-3697) is an assistant professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Lam received his Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario and has research interests in a number of areas including retail marketing, customer loyalty, and customers’ adoption and usage of technology. His work has appeared inMarketing Science, theJournal of Retailing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, andAdvances in Consumer Research. Venkatesh (Venky) Shankar (vshankar@rhsmith.umd.edu) is Ralph J. Tyser Fellow and an associate professor of marketing in the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. His areas of research are e-business, competitive strategy, international marketing, pricing, new product management, and supply chain management. His research has been published or is forthcoming in theJournal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, theStrategic Management Journal, theJournal of Retailing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Public Policy and Marketing, andMarketing Letters. he is co-editor of theJournal of Interactive Marketing; associate editor ofManagement Science; and serves on the editorial boards ofMarketing Science, theJournal of Marketing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Retailing, and theJournal of Academy of Marketing Science. He is a three-time winner of the Krowe Award for Outstanding Teaching and teaches Marketing Management, Digital Business Strategy, Competitive Marketing Strategy, and International Marketing (http://www.venkyshankar.com). M. Krishna Erramilli (amkerramilli@ntu.edu.sg) is an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He has undertaken many studies on marketing strategy issues in service firms, particularly in an international context, and has published his work in journals like theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of International Business Studies, theColumbia Journal of World Business, and theJournal of Business Research. He has presented numerous papers at international conferences. His current research interests center on the international expansion of Asia-based service firms. Bvsan Murthy (abmurthy@ntu.edu.sg) is an associate professor of marketing and international business in the Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Prior to turning to the academe a decade ago, he had 20 years of international industry experience. He has published in journals likeThe Cornell H.R.A. Quarterly and theInternational Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and has also written industry white papers/monographs and chapters in books. His current research interests center on strategic services marketing/management and customer value management.     

Contractual governance,relational governance,and the performance of interfirm service exchanges: The influence of boundary-spanner closeness

Academics and managers are confronted with reconciling the social and economic aspects of business-to-business exchanges. In a service context, the authors investigate the relative importance of contractual and relational governance on exchange performance and the influence of the boundary spanner on the implementation of these governance mechanisms and on exchange performance. They test a model of the governance of commercial banking exchanges using interview data with both parties to the exchange (the account manager as the bank’s boundary spanner and the business client). Relational governance is the predominant governance mechanism associated with exchange performance. Contractual governance is also positively associated to exchange performance, but to a much lesser extent. The closeness of the account manager to the client company in terms of information gathering is also positively associated to exchange performance. However, this is mediated through both contractual and relational governance mechanisms with relational governance being the stronger mechanism. Ronald J. Ferguson (rferguson@jmsb.concordia.ca) is an associate professor of management and director of the John Molson MBA at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. During 25 years of research and management in the health field, he published inCirculation, theAmerican Journal of Cardiology, and theAmerican Journal of Physiology. In recent years he has published in theEuropean Journal of Marketing, theInternational Journal of Service Industry Management, Managing Service Quality, and theInternational Journal of Bank Marketing. His current research interests focus on international studies of the effectiveness of relationship marketing and management in the fields of health care, emerging biotechnology clusters, and commercial banking. He was coorganizer of the 2001 International Colloquium in Relationship Marketing. Michèle Paulin (mpaulin@jmsb.concordia.ca) is an associate professor in the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University. She has a law degree from Sherbrooke University, an MBA from Concordia University, and a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Quebec at Montreal. Her research focuses on business-to-business relationships; service marketing; and service management in the areas of commercial banking, health services, hospitality, and biotechnology industries in Canada, USA, Mexico, and Europe. She has made presentations at major conferences such as the American Marketing Association, the Industrial Marketing Purchasing group, the European Marketing Association Conferences, and the European Academy of Management. She was coorganizer of the 2001 International Colloquium in Relationship Marketing. Her research has appeared in theEuropean Journal of Marketing, Managing Service Quality, theInternational Journal of Service Industry Management, and theInternational Journal of Bank Marketing. Jasmin Bergeron (bergeron.jasmin@uqam.ca) is an associate professor of marketing at the University of Quebec at Montreal. He authored or coauthored four marketing books, 20 case studies, and more than 10 articles in academic journals such as theJournal of Service Research and theJournal of Services Marketing. His research interests are in the areas of services marketing, relationship banking, and research methodology. He also serves as a marketing consultant in professional selling, service quality, and bank marketing.     

SERVCON: development and validation of a multidimensional service convenience scale

As customers have demanded greater convenience in service exchanges, researchers have responded by incorporating the convenience construct into their conceptual models and empirical studies, but a comprehensive, formally validated measure of convenience remains lacking. This study conceptualizes service convenience as a second-order, five-dimensional construct that reflects consumers’ perceived time and effort in purchasing or using a service. Service convenience dimensions are salient at different stages of the purchase decision process. Given this conceptualization, the study presents the development and validation of the SERVCON scale, a comprehensive instrument for measuring service convenience. The five dimensions are independent within a nomological network that illustrates distinct antecedent and consequent effects, and the results reinforce the multidimensional representation, offering insight into the distinctive relationships between each service convenience dimension and its antecedents, such as competitive intensity, and consequences, such as repurchase behavior. The findings help researchers and managers understand a fully conceptualized convenience construct and facilitate the measurement of convenience in future empirical studies.     

政策认知、确权方式与土地确权的农户满意度

民众的政策评价是衡量政策实施效果的重要维度,有必要从农户满意度的视角分析土地确权政策实施的效果。利用对苏、鲁、赣、皖四省农户的591份调研问卷,基于农户满意度视角,考察农户的政策认知和地方政府的确权方式对土地确权政策实施效果的影响,分析发现：农户对土地确权政策了解程度和工作参与程度均显著正向影响农户的满意度,而确权方式由于本身受地方经济发展水平等因素的影响而与农户满意度无显著相关性;平原地区的农户和以家庭经营收入为主的农户对土地确权政策实施的满意度较高,而家庭人口数较多的农户满意度较低。地方政府应通过加强政策宣传、积极引导农户参与等方式提高土地确权政策实施效果,采用何种确权方式既要尊重农户真实意愿,又要符合地方经济发展水平。     

统筹城乡发展中农民市民化的政策突破——以重庆市九龙坡区先行示范改革为例

统筹城乡发展是在科学发展观指导下的一个新的历史课题,如何为实现城乡协调发展找到一条正确途径,是统筹城乡发展实践中的关键课题。九龙坡区在统筹城乡综合配套改革中以产业发展为依托,以土地流转制度创新为突破口,以提供社会保障为基础,在农民市民化的试点中闯出了一条以“承包地换社保、宅基地换住房”的“陶家模式”,为其他类似地区的统筹城乡改革提供了可供借鉴的经验。     

构建高校"两课"教学新模式--运用网络教育与传统教育互补优势提高"两课"教学效果

在以科技为主导的21世纪,网络多媒体教学已成为教育领域新兴的重要教学模式,将网络教育引入到“两课”教学建设中,探讨二者的优势互补作用,对激发“两课”的活力,充分发挥“两课”对大学生进行思想政治教育的主渠道和主阵地的作用是十分必要的。