Loyalty's influence on satisfaction in cross‐cultural settings

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of customer loyalty on the predictive relationship between the meets expectations and affective feeling state customer satisfaction constructs and customers' future (re)purchase behavior.Design/methodology/approachNew measures were developed for the attitudinal and behavioral aspects of customer loyalty, while extant measures were used for the satisfaction constructs and future (re)purchase behavior, leading to a survey that was administered to US and Chinese samples. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling for testing hypotheses developed from extant literature.FindingsThe study found that attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty are two distinct constructs with both US and Chinese samples, and that the influence of the two loyalty constructs on the predictive paths between meets expectations and affective feeling state and future (re)purchase intent vary by product category and culture.Research limitations/implicationsOnly two brands were employed, and the survey was completed with university students instead of a broader range of age and socio‐economic groups.Practical implicationsThis study builds on extant customer satisfaction and loyalty knowledge in order to further the empirical cross‐cultural understanding of whether standardized or localized marketing strategies are more suitable across cultures.Originality/valueThis study is a benchmark comparative cross‐cultural study of the influence of customer loyalty on customer satisfaction and future (re)purchase intent in a cross‐cultural setting.