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Because consumers can vary greatly in the nature of their relationship with a service provider, it is reasonable to expect that a wide range of different values may influence consumption behavior. Additionally, consumers’ values composition may predispose them to interpret their relationships with service providers differently and those service providers’ marketing communications. The present study explores the range of values which motivate business consumers’ reactions to service providers, specifically airlines’ frequent flyer programs. As part of this process, consumers are segmented in terms of their values and relationships with airlines in order to better understand the motives and behavior that drive choice of service providers. Based on the results, specific communications strategies are offered for each of the identified segments that address the desired benefits sought by each value segment.

The purpose of this article is to empirically examine the influence of consumer involvement on perceived relational benefits across service types.

Based on Bowen's service typology, responses from patrons of fast‐food restaurants and hairdressers/stylists were used to assess the influence of consumer involvement on relationship marketing, specifically perceived service benefits and response behaviors.

Results indicate that highly involved consumers perceive greater relational benefits when engaged in a high contact, customized service (i.e. hairdressers/stylists) versus a more standardized, moderate contact service (i.e. fast‐food restaurant).

Care should be taken when generalizing these findings to other service settings as this study only addressed two service types. Thus, an opportunity for future research could add moderate contact, non‐personalized services to determine if there are significant differences between the three service categories. Additionally, this study was based in the USA, thus cultural differences may influence perceived benefits of service firms selected.

The results of this study suggest that a service firm providing a more standardized service offering is better served by hiring and training competent and trustworthy employees than by adopting relational benefit programs. On the other hand, high contact customized service providers are encouraged to engage in relationship activities with highly involved consumers, specifically those related to confidence benefits.

This study confirms the recommendation that relationship marketing may be inappropriate for all service firms. More importantly, the level of consumer involvement with the service has a significant moderating effect on perceived relational benefits.

This study aims to test the central role of the perceived reputation of country-of-origin (COO) firms between cultural and socio-psychological variables and management and economic variables that help to explain the multi-faceted phenomenon of COO on a developing market. It also tests the moderator role of ethnocentrism, which is the objective of recommending different segment marketing strategies for international firms.

The study opted for the structure equation modelling methodology to analyze data collected from 274 Mexican car owners who evaluate Korean automobiles.

The results show that the COO reputation of firms from a developing market has a mediating role on the relationship between cultural openness and animosity and trust, risk and purchase intention, but the consequents of the perceived reputation of COO vary depending on the level of consumers’ ethnocentrism.

Firms seeking to internationalize need to find out how to overcome the hurdle of target market animosity, to increase the cultural openness and to promote trust and purchases in international markets; at the same time, they reduce the perception of risk. In this sense, it might help to increase the perceived reputation of COO firms and to use different marketing strategies according to the target market.

This study analyzes reputation of firms associated to a COO as a signal that can help to solve purchase decisions in the relationship between consumers and firms from developing markets and also corroborates its role as a mediator factor. In addition, this study empirically tests how animosity and cultural openness influence perceived reputation of COO firms, relationships that has scarcely been studied in literature. This study has also found that less and more ethnocentric consumers have differences in how the COO cues influence on their evaluations and behaviour. Finally, as insufficient consumer research has been conducted into emerging and developing markets, this study focuses on consumers from a developing country and regards automobiles from an emerging country.

This paper aims to examine how social comparison (SC) and belief in karma (KA) encourage materialism (MAT) and promote consumers’ life satisfaction (LS).

Two studies were conducted with Indian middle class consumers to test the basic premises of the current research. The first one used a survey (N = 247), while the second one used an experimental design (N = 206).

The survey results showed that SC and belief in KA promoted MAT amongst Indian consumers and further enhanced their LS. Findings from the experiment revealed a novel two-way interaction, in that the KA–MAT relationship was moderated by the underlying motivation for MAT.

Future research may validate and extend our findings using different samples to increase external validity.

By explaining the interactive effects of MAT, its underlying motivation and belief in KA, managers will gain a better understanding of why consumers in an emerging market like India purchase conspicuous products.

This is the first paper to study how the KA–MAT relationship influences LS amongst consumers in the world’s fastest-rising economy. Furthermore, no prior research has reported a boundary condition for the KA–MAT relationship studied here. The findings contribute to an extremely limited body of literature on KA and consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the effects of service quality (SQ) on outcome variables may shift over time. However, scant attention has been paid to capturing that shift. The current study uses the theory of relationship dynamics to capture the rate and direction of change in the effects of SQ attributes on customer satisfaction (CS) and emotional attachment (EA). For this purpose, the study takes CS-velocity and EA-velocity as dynamic outcomes of SQ.

A sample of 306 restaurant consumers responded to a structured questionnaire at three points in time. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out, followed by analysis of the data through latent growth curve modeling using MPlus (Version 8.1).

SQ attributes positively affect CS and EA, but these effects diminish over time, as SQ attributes negatively influence CS-velocity and EA-velocity. In addition, the study demonstrates that dynamic elements strongly impact behavioral intentions (BI).

The study enables service and relationship marketing managers to better understand the role of SQ attributes in maintaining longitudinal satisfaction, attachment and BI. The insights from this longitudinal investigation help managers to formulate long-term service management and relationship management strategies.

This study is the first attempt to examine SQ’s dynamic outcomes using longitudinal panel data. It is the first study to introduce EA-velocity as a dynamic construct of EA and the first to examine the relationships of CS-velocity and EA-velocity with BI.

Digital self-expression, recently one of the most important research themes, is currently under-researched. In this context, this study aims to propose a parsimonious research model of self-extension tendency, its drivers and its outcomes. The model is tested in the context of social media engagement intentions (liking, sharing and commenting) with focal brands and across individualist versus collectivist cultures.

The model is tested in two individualist cultures (N = 230 and 232) and two collectivist cultures (N = 232 and 237) by conducting surveys in four countries (Australia, USA, Qatar and India). Nike and Ray-Ban are the focal brands studied, with Facebook serving as the targeted social networking site (SNS) platform.

Self-monitoring and self-esteem are found to drive the self-extension tendency across cultures, with stronger effects in the individualist culture than in the collectivist culture. The self-extension tendency has a relatively stronger positive influence on social media engagement intentions in the individualist culture than in the collectivist culture. This tendency is also found to mediate the link between self-monitoring, self-extension and social media engagement intentions across both cultures, albeit in different ways. In collectivist culture, self-monitoring’s influence on the self-extension tendency is moderated by public self-consciousness. The study’s findings have important theoretical and practical implications. In individualist culture, self-monitoring’s influence on the self-extension tendency is moderated by public self-consciousness.

The present findings confirm that the tendency to incorporate the brand into one’s self-concept and to further extend the self is indeed contingent on one’s cultural background. The role of public self-consciousness may vary between individualist and collectivist cultures, something recommended by past research for empirical testing.

Managers can leverage this research model to entice pro-brand social media engagement by nurturing consumers’ digital selves in terms of maneuvering their self-extension tendency and its drivers, namely, self-monitoring and self-esteem. Second, promoting the self-extension tendency and its drivers varies across cultures, with this finding offering practical cultural nuances supporting marketing managers’ decisions.

This is one of the pioneering studies that tests a cross-cultural parsimonious model based on theories of self-extension, self-monitoring and self-esteem, especially within the context of brand engagement intentions on an SNS platform.

Contemporary scholars contend that the buyer–seller relationship is dynamic in nature, so it grows, matures and declines over time. However, most studies that adopt the dynamic perspective debates its conceptualization and how dynamic effects are captured. This scholarly discourse has led to multiple dynamic perspectives and resulted in fragmented and scattered literature on the subject. This study aims to synthesize the large body of research on dynamic perspectives in a systematic way.

This paper follows a systematic review approach to extract and review 192 research articles from four electronic databases: Web of Science, EBSCOhost Business, ScienceDirect and Emerald. Based on the inclusion criteria that the articles examine time-dependent relationship development in light of a generalizable dynamic perspective, 61 articles were selected for the final examination and reporting.

This review reveals that most research on the buyer–seller dynamic relationship follows at least one of four perspectives: the relationship lifecycle, relationship age, relationship velocity and the asymmetric–dynamic perspective. Each perspective offers a distinct conceptualization of relationship development and has certain advantages that enable researchers to capture information about relationships’ growth trajectory in a unique manner.

Firms need a set of diverse strategies for their customers, depending on the state of the relationships’ development, as strategies that pay off at initial levels may fail at later stages. This study helps managers select an appropriate dynamic perspective that best aligns with their customers’ stage of relationship development so they can devise customized relationship-management strategies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this article is the first attempt to organize the discourse of a large body of research on dynamic perspectives, and therefore it helps academicians and practitioners to choose the dynamic perspective that best suits their objectives and research settings. This review documents key research areas that have been overlooked and highlights opportunities for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of four important variables in the development of customer loyalty in mobile commerce. These variables are personal (propensity to use information and communication technologies (ICTs)), transactional (opportunism), and relational (trust and satisfaction).

A broad sample of 1,053 mobile customers in Mexico was studied using the structural equation analysis methodology.

The results offer evidence on how trust and satisfaction can increase loyalty and motivate purchases via mobile devices. In addition, the results show evidence of the indirect effect (mediated through trust) of opportunism, and propensity to use ICTs on loyalty.

Achieving customer satisfaction is revealed as the main strategy enterprises should seek in order to encourage repetitive purchases via mobile devices and customer loyalty. At the same time, companies should consider that the customers most likely to use ICTs, and those who perceive less opportunism can also be very loyal as a result of a higher level of trust when making purchases using mobile devices.

The contributions of this paper are: (1) to analyze the generation of loyalty in mobile commerce using a conceptual model that includes variables of different theoretical perspectives and nature, both positive and negative. (2) To provide empirical evidence from a sample of mobile users who have already bought goods via mobile phone, contributing to prior literature that has focused on analyzing the behavior of mobile phone users who do not make purchases via mobile phones. (3) To study mobile commerce in an emerging market with notable potential for growth (Mexico), which has not been studied at length in previous literature.

El presente trabajo analiza el papel de cuatro importantes variables en el desarrollo de la lealtad de los compradores por móvil. Variables de índole personal (propensión al uso de las TICs), transaccional (oportunismo) y relacional (confianza y satisfacción).

Una amplia muestra de 1053 compradores por móvil en México es analizada mediante la metodología de ecuaciones estructurales.

Los resultados ofrecen evidencia sobre la capacidad de la confianza y la satisfacción para incrementar la lealtad y motivar la compra a través del móvil. Además, se muestra evidencia del efecto indirecto (mediado a través de la confianza) del oportunismo y la propensión al uso de las TICs sobre la lealtad.

La consecución de la satisfacción del comprador se revela como la principal estrategia que deben seguir las empresas que buscan fomentar la repetición de la compra a través del móvil y la confianza de sus actuales compradores. A la par, las empresas deben considerar que los clientes más propensos al uso de las TICs y los que perciben menos oportunismo pueden ser más leales, al aumentar su confianza en la compra por móvil.

Las contribuciones son: (1) Analizar la generación de la lealtad en el comercio móvil utilizando un modelo conceptual que incluye variables de distintas perspectivas teóricas y de naturaleza tanto positiva como negativa. (2) Ofrecer evidencia empírica de una muestra de usuarios de teléfono móvil que ya han comprado por este medio, contribuyendo a la literatura previa que se ha centrado en analizar el comportamiento de los usuarios de teléfono móvil no compradores. (3) Estudiar el comercio móvil en un mercado emergente (México) poco estudiado en la literatura previa y con un notable potencial de crecimiento.

The objective of this work is to provide evidence of customer switching intentions as a complex phenomenon involving a series of firm actions – service quality failures, unfair price, low perceived commitment and anger incidents – and factors relating to the purchase situation or the consumer that also play an important role as moderators in the dissolution process.

An empirical study has been carried out in the case of customers of car‐insurance firms.

Results demonstrate the existence of some factors that have a weak influence on the switching intention – service quality and company commitment – and other factors that have a strong influence and precipitate the consumers' decisions – price changes and critical incidents. This study also underlines the moderator role of knowledge about alternatives and switching costs in this process.

This findings show that a continuing dissatisfaction with the firm as a consequence of a quality that is poorer than expected does not influence individuals as much as a change in the price policy or a one‐off incident in which consumers experience a strong unease.

This work provides empirical evidence about the existence of various determinants of switching: variables that weaken the relationship and variables that precipitate dissolution. These categories had already been discussed theoretically in previous work, but their effect had not been tested. Moreover, it advances in the idea that switching intention may fundamentally be conditioned by consumers' level of involvement and their knowledge about other alternatives.

Although relationship marketing has developed into the prevailing marketing paradigm, it frequently encounters resistance from the demand side. Both management practitioners and academics indicate that at least some consumers show reactance against loyalty programs, i.e. against tactical instruments of relationship marketing. Nevertheless, relationship marketing has widely neglected reactance theory. This paper attempts to close this gap.

Based on the fundamental principles of loyalty programs and reactance theory the paper presents a set of hypotheses on the determinants and effects of situational consumer reactance against loyalty programs. It tests these hypotheses on the basis of 388 face‐to‐face interviews with bookstore customers. These interviews include a between‐subject manipulation on the reactance effect of economic, social‐psychological, and contractual bonding potentials. To test the proposed hypotheses, the paper applies structural equation modeling with PLS.

As expected, contractual bonds provoked reactance effects, while social‐psychological bonds neither increased reactance, nor the perceived utility of the program. Economic bonds raised perceived utility up to a certain threshold level, from which the reactance effect dominated thereafter.

As a consequence, a cautious and limited application of customer loyalty programs is advisable. The developed consumer reactance scale can help managers to evaluate the effects of planned or implemented customer retention measures.

This is the first attempt to investigate situational reactance in a loyalty program setting.