Passenger Perception Regarding Bus Service: A Deep Examination on Multi-component Concept of Loyalty

Abstract

Loyalty is a preeminent concept for a company to get a higher share of customers. However, there are few studies on loyalty within bus service context. One possible reason for the low focus on bus user loyalty is that there are different views among researchers on the concept of loyalty. To address the issue, this paper proposes a model to express the concept of loyalty in which loyalty has been decomposed into three main phases including attitudinal loyalty, conative loyalty and action loyalty. The difference between the proposed model and conventional models is that attitudinal loyalty was represented in a formative construct. In addition, an excavation on the attitudinal facet of loyalty leads to a suggestion that there is a need to add up implicit loyalty as a new aspect of attitudinal loyalty. Furthermore, the study provides an empirical examination on impacts of social norm and habit toward attitudinal-behavioral relationship.