What drives consumers’ active participation in the online channel? Customer equity, experience quality, and relationship proneness

Abstract

Abstract While the proliferation of online channel has promoted consumerś active participation in the value-creation process, affecting the way consumers transact and interact with brands, this increased consumer empowerment also has its dark side. Drawing from social exchange theory, we aim to offer a unifying framework to understand the linkages between customer equity, experience quality and non-transactional behaviors (including co-creation and word-of-mouth) in an e-commerce context. We also suggest that relationship proneness moderates the established links. With the final valid sample for 761 online banking customers obtained via the survey in a European financial services company, we apply partial least squares and develop a multi-group analysis. Customer equity, as a global assessment of brand, is vital for the development of positive customer experience, which consequently promotes the enforcement of non-transactional behaviors. Finally, relationship proneness strengthens the impact of customer equity and customer experience quality. Implications for theory and management are discussed.