Analysing relational benefits in e‐business environment from behavioural perspective

Abstract

AbstractThis paper explores relational benefits from Chinese customer's behavioural perspective, which is a valuable addition to the existing literature that focuses on the western cultural background. The findings of this research show that the relational benefits exist in the online shopping context. In addition to confidence benefit, special treatment benefit and social benefit that have been recognized in traditional services, a new benefit scale, honour benefit, is identified in this study. Empirical data from over 500 online consumers suggest that the relational benefits are becoming more and more important and can possibly turn into the sources of the new competitive advantage for the enterprise in the e‐business environment. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.