Fifteen Years of Research on Customer Loyalty Formation: A Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Model

Abstract

Despite extensive research on loyalty formation, findings regarding interrelationships between loyalty and its key drivers, such as perceived service quality, perceived value, and customer satisfaction, are inconclusive and often contradictory. To provide more definitive statements about these relationships, we synthesized and analyzed findings from 153 articles published in eight top-tier tourism and hospitality journals between 2006 and 2020 using meta-analytic structural equation modeling. We also confirmed that five- and seven-point Likert-type scales did not generate significant differences in the effect size of correlational measures. A further comparison of four theoretically postulated competing models strongly supports the full mediation model. Our results suggest that customer satisfaction fully mediates the effects of perceived service quality and perceived value on customer loyalty, whereas perceived service quality directly influences perceived value. This study contributes to the literature by reconciling and synthesizing inconclusive findings from prior research.