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This paper aims to investigate the interrelated role of relational commitment and dependence as drivers of key performance outcomes. Specifically, the authors provide a conceptual model of the impact of commitment on relationship value dependence and switching cost dependence. The authors further investigate how these dimensions of dependence offer differing noneconomic and economic paths to strategic and financial performance.

Survey data was collected from 296 purchasing agents across multiple industries located in the USA. The conceptual model and accompanying hypotheses were tested via partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results show that the relational path is driven by affective and normative commitment, which are related to relationship value dependence. Conversely, calculative commitment is related to switching cost dependence. This economic path is related to both strategic and financial performance, whereas the relational path is more closely related to strategic as opposed to financial performance outcomes.

This study extends research on Business-To-Business (B2B) relationships by leveraging social exchange theory to examine the interrelated roles played by two forms of dependence on performance outcomes. Thus, the authors answer Scheer et al.’s (2015) call for research into the two distinct types of dependence – relationship value and switching cost dependence – and their roles in determining B2B relationship outcomes. The findings contribute to the literature by integrating social exchange and relationship marketing concepts to develop a dual pathway approach to B2B partnerships.

The results suggest that dependence is not necessarily negative for firms. Specifically, buyers can and do still exhibit positive performance, both strategic and financial, in relationships with suppliers even when dependent on the relationship. Regardless of whether buyers are dependent due to a relationship or economic factors, both can, in different ways, lead to positive strategic and financial outcomes. Together, the authors contribute to the understanding of B2B partnerships by offering guidelines for both buyers and suppliers in the dyad.

The authors derive a comprehensive model depicting primarily relational and economic paths to performance through different types of commitment and dependence. The authors contribute to the literature by demonstrating that relational and economic paths to success are not the same, highlighting how firms could influence performance even when the relationship is not necessarily characterized by generally positive relational benefits and behaviors.

Although the fitness switching costs scale (FSCS) was shown to have sound psychometric properties, the length of the 54-item may impose burdens on survey participants and present methodological and analytic challenges for researchers and practitioners. Therefore, the present study shortened and validated two versions of the FSCS, namely the 33-item FSCS (FSCS-33) and the 11-item FSCS (FSCS-11).

In Study 1 (n = 411), the most useful items from the FSCS for the FSCS-33 and FSCS-11 were identified using item response theory (IRT). Study 2 (n = 391) and Study 3 (n = 400) assessed the psychometric properties of the FSCS-33 and FSCS-11, respectively, using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The FSCS-33 and FSCS-11 demonstrated strong reliability and validity in assessing switching costs in fitness centers.

The psychometrically sound short-form scales provide researchers and practitioners with convenient and accurate means of measuring switching costs in fitness centers.

The halal cosmetics industry continues to grow significantly. Furthermore, using halal cosmetics is a must for Muslims. This study aims to analyze the factors influencing the switching intention to halal cosmetics in Indonesia.

This quantitative study uses a Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) on 214 respondents. The variables include halal certification, halal awareness, product image, perceived behavioral control, subjective norm, attitude, advertisement and switching intention.

The product image plays the most influential role in deriving the attitude toward switching intention to halal cosmetics, following perceived behavioral control, halal awareness and subjective norm, but not halal certification and advertisement. The result indicates that the image of halal cosmetics influences customers’ attitudes toward switching to using halal cosmetics. Indonesian customers know the obligation to use halal products because they are Muslim. However, the existence of halal certification does not derive the switching intention to halal cosmetics.

This study conducts research only in Indonesia. As a recommendation, further studies might conduct a comparative test using multicultural respondents in several countries. Other studies also suggested examining factors of switching intention through different generational, especially in countries with high individualism traits.

This study will encourage the halal industry, especially the halal cosmetics industry, to pay more attention to the product image. Meanwhile, the government can provide incentives or rewards to promote industry participation in halal cosmetics. The findings provide a more detailed understanding of how product image can influence someone to switch to halal cosmetics.

Research on switching intention to halal cosmetics is still limited. This study uses halal variables, while previous studies only used religiosity. This study also introduced the product images motivating customers’ switching intention to use halal cosmetics.

This study aims to predict customer churn in resort hotels by calculating the churn probability of repeat customers for future stays in the same hotel brand.

Based on the recency, frequency, monetary (RFM) paradigm, random forest and logistic regression supervised machine learning algorithms were used to predict churn behavior. The model with superior performance was used to detect potential churners and generate a priority matrix.

The random forest algorithm showed a higher prediction performance with an 80% accuracy rate. The most important variables were RFM-based, followed by hotel sector-specific variables such as market, season, accompaniers and booker. Some managerial strategies were proposed to retain future churners, clustered as “hesitant,” “economy,” “alternative seeker,” and “opportunity chaser” customer groups.

This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of customer behavior in the hospitality industry and provides valuable insight for hotel practitioners by demonstrating the methods that facilitate the identification of potential churners and their characteristics.

Most customer retention studies in hospitality either concentrate on the antecedents of retention or customers’ revisit intentions using traditional methods. Taking a unique place within the literature, this study conducts churn prediction analysis for repeat hotel customers by opening a new area for inquiry in hospitality studies.

To minimize customer churn, many service providers offer consumers the option of automatic contract renewal at the end of a contract period. Such agreements are known as rollover service contracts (RSCs). This research quantifies the effect of RSCs and other related factors, such as incentives, on consumers' service choice decisions.

The study adopts choice-based conjoint analysis to assess the effect of RSCs on consumers' choices and to determine whether effect size varies when selecting a cell phone network or gym/leisure club provider, which represent lower-priced utilitarian and higher-priced hedonic services.

It was found that RSCs produce negative perceptions and intended behaviors for the majority of consumers across different product types. Nevertheless, as explained by social exchange theory, many individuals may be persuaded to enter into a RSC on the basis of reciprocity if they are offered an incentive such as a price discount or free product add-on.

In the marketing domain, this is the first comprehensive study to quantify the role of contract type among a range of other factors in consumers' decision-making when selecting a service. The authors' results offer context-specific implications for service marketers. First, RSCs are perceived more negatively in high-priced hedonistic categories, especially among those with lower incomes. Second, price discounts are more effective than product add-ons for motivating hedonic purchases, while product add-ons work better with utilitarian services.

The circular economy (CE) promotes the recovery of value from waste while also working towards achieving long-term environmentally sustainable goals. The goal of this research is to explore the challenges, opportunities, future scope and green practices that small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) face as they move from the linear economy to the CE.

Based on a structured questionnaire, a survey was conducted with representatives from 163 SMEs in India. The data were analysed using co-variance based structural equation modelling technique.

This research identifies various challenges, including consumer acceptability, worries about awareness, recyclability issues, financial constraints and the absence of a defined management plan for SMEs in adopting the CE. Further, strong management will, innovation, technical up-gradation, training of employees, employee motivation and appropriate guidelines are recognized as essential possibilities for CE implementation.

While there has been some work on CE, no studies have directly compared these efforts with the goal of shifting from a linear economy to a CE. Given the transient nature of many archives, it is critical that the efforts put into them and the opinions of those who work in them be recorded so that communities can benefit from a shared linear economy in making decisions about their own history.

This study aims to explore the different effects of inter-community group networks and intra-community group networks on group innovation.

The authors used a pooled panel dataset of 12,111 self-organizing innovation groups in 463 game product creative workshop communities from Steam support to test the hypothesis. The pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) model is used for analyzing the data.

The results show that network constraint is negatively associated with the innovation performance of online groups. The average path length of the inter-community group network negatively moderates the relationship between network constraint and group innovation, while the average path length of the intra-community group network positively moderates the relationship between network constraint and group innovation. In addition, both the network density of inter-community group networks and intra-community group networks can negatively moderate the negative relationship between network constraint and group innovation.

The findings of this study suggest that network structural characteristics of inter-community networks and intra-community networks have different effects on online groups’ product innovation, and therefore, group members should consider their inter- and intra-community connections when choosing other groups to form a collaborative innovation relationship.

Despite the vast potential of mobile phone use, grape smallholder farmers’ satisfaction with mobile phone use has attracted insufficient attention among scholars in Tanzania. The study examined factors influencing satisfaction with mobile phone use for accessing agricultural marketing information.

The study used a cross-sectional research design and a mixed research method. Structured questionnaire and focus group discussions were used to collect primary data from 400 sampled grape smallholder farmers. Data were analysed inferentially involving two-way analysis of variance, ordinal logistic regression and thematic analysis.

The findings indicate a statistically significant disparity in grape smallholder farmers’ satisfaction across different types of agricultural marketing information. Grape smallholder farmers exhibited higher satisfaction levels concerning information on selling time compared to all other types of agricultural marketing information (price, buyers, quality and quantity). Factors influencing grape smallholder farmers’ satisfaction with mobile phone use were related to perceived usefulness, ease of use, experience and cost.

This study contributes to scientific knowledge by providing actionable insights for formulating unique strategies for smallholder farmers’ satisfaction with agricultural marketing information.

This study aims to deal with the paucity of studies in the stages of the development of loyalty behaviour of customers in the healthcare context by incorporating three crucial service quality dimensions (physical environment, personnel quality and technical quality) and also investigating trust and commitment as mediating factors.

Survey data were obtained from 420 respondents admitted to government hospitals in Kerala employing a convenience sampling method. The formulated hypotheses were tested using partial least square structural equation modelling.

Results indicate that patient satisfaction, trust and commitment can create favourable behavioural intentions amongst patients. When patients reveal higher trust, they are more inclined to value healthcare services and willing to commit to a long-term relationship, resulting in increased patient loyalty.

Organisational efforts should improve trust and commitment and build a good relationship between service providers and patients. Efforts should be taken to raise the standard of technical and personnel aspects, and a focus on physical infrastructure should also be considered to build a favourable behavioural intention to revisit and positive referrals.

This is the first empirical study to analyse technical quality, personnel quality and physical environment along with the mediating effect of trust, and commitment in a four-stage loyalty development model in the healthcare context of Kerala, India.

The primary objective of this study is to explore consumers' non-adoption intentions towards meta-commerce (or metaverse retailing). Utilizing the Innovation Resistance Theory (IRT) as the theoretical foundation, this study investigates the impact of diverse barriers on non-adoption intentions within the meta-commerce context.

A total of 356 responses were gathered to test the proposed hypotheses. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with SmartPLS 4 software was used to examine these hypotheses.

The findings of this study show that perceived cyber risk, perceived regulatory uncertainty, perceived switching cost and perceived technical uncertainty are significantly linked to non-adoption intention towards meta-commerce. Furthermore, the study suggests that the moderating influence of technostress on these connections is more pronounced for consumers with high technostress compared to those with low technostress.

This study makes a significant contribution to the current body of literature by providing valuable insights into the fundamental barriers that consumers encounter when contemplating the adoption of meta-commerce. This contribution is particularly noteworthy as it fills a gap in the existing literature, as no prior study has comprehensively examined the primary obstacles that shape consumer intentions towards meta-commerce adoption. This novel perspective offers scholars, businesses and policymakers a foundation for developing strategies to address these barriers effectively.