Relationships between Customer Socialization, Customer Participation, and Loyalty
in On-line Service Providers
Abstract
Purpose
-This study aims to propose and validate a research model describing the
relationships between customer socialization, customer participation, and customer loyalty in
online service industry.
Research design/ data / methodology
–This study develops survey
questionnaires
regarding the constructs within the proposed research model. Current members of Facebook and
DaumKakao are selected as the sample for conducting the survey. The collected data is analyzed
by structural equation modeling method using SPSS and AMOS programs.
Results
–Proposed hypotheses of the positive relationships between customer
socialization and customer participation, and between customer participation and customer
loyalty are all supported.
Conclusions
–The results of this study suggest customer loyalty as a manageable resource
in the online service industry. Also, customer socialization is validated as a new strategy to
increase customer participation. These results validate the practical importance of
communicating mission, purpose, value, and other customer socialization activities that firms
undertake.
Keywords : Customer socialization, Customer participation, Customer loyalty, Online
services, Facebook, DaumKakao
JEL Classifications :M10, M15, M30
1.
Introduction
Customers take on an important role within the distribution system of the online service
industry. Customers’ role as a co-producer or a co-value creator is critical to the competitiveness
of the firms in online service industry (Holland et al., 2001). In the online service business, users
produce and distribute online content (Holland et al., 2001). Also, when new products or services
are released, customers participate in a process to improve the service or product by giving
negative or positive feedback to the firms (Park, 2013). Although, due to low switching costs,
customers show low loyalty in online service industry (Deng et al., 2010),
utilizing customer
participation may pose as a key to increase customer loyalty in the online service industry. Thus,
a comprehensive research needs to be conducted on what stimulates customer participation and
how customer participation influences customer loyalty.
According to the study on customer socialization based on the organizational
socialization theory, particularly in service industry, customer socialization can encourage
customer participation (Guo e al., 2013; Wu, 2011).
Customer socialization is a process that
firms make efforts to help customers to understand the vision, objective, and core value of the
firms, to become interested in the firms, and to have favorable attitudes to the firms. This study
proposes the research model and hypotheses on the relationships between customer socialization,
customer participation, and customer loyalty, and then conducts an empirical analysis. Because
customer participation is particularly important in the online platform business, this study
validates the research model and hypothesis on a popular social network service (SNS),
Facebook and a popular platform service in Korea, DaumKakao.
2.
You've reached the end of your free preview.
Want to read all 21 pages?
- Fall '19
- Social network service, Service system, Tertiary sector of the economy, Customer Participation
