Identifying Factors Preventing Sustainable Brand Loyalty among Consumers: A Mixed Methods Approach

Abstract

Consumers' brand-switching behavior, or the non-sustainability of consumer loyalty to a brand, brings huge losses to affected companies. Thus, the investigation of factors behind consumers' brand-switching is very important. The study analyzes the mechanism and configuration of brand-switching intention in order to provide guidelines for increasing brand competitiveness. Using empirical analysis (SEM) and qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this study elucidates the motives and mechanisms in operation when customers decide whether to stay with a particular brand or switch to an alternative. The data was collected in August 2017. The results of SEM showed that the attractiveness of an alternate brand had a negative influence on current brand image recognition and brand value recognition, which could produce negative emotions that then lead to a brand-switching intention. The fsQCA uncovered six combinations or configurations of variables that could lead to brand-switching. This study has both theoretical and practical outcomes for competitive branding.Sustainability 2018, 10, 4685 2 of 13 for brand conversion intentions; however, most research has directly addressed the factors influencing brand-switching [4][5][6] rather than systematically analyzing the internal influencing mechanism and effective formation path of brand conversion intentions. To fill these gaps, our study utilized cognition theory in order to explore the mechanisms and configurations of brand-switching intention. Alternative attractiveness, negative brand image recognition, negative brand value recognition, negative brand emotion and website anxiety were included in this study in order to determine their mutual effects on the decision to stay with a particular brand or to switch to a new one.This paper is organized into specific sections. Following the introduction in Section 1, the theoretical background is discussed and a literature review is presented in Section 2; the research model and hypotheses are also considered. In Section 3, the research methodology, including measurement and data collection, is described, and in Section 4 the data is analyzed. Section 5 includes discussion and interpretation of the results, and the conclusions are summarized, offering some theoretical and practical implications. Lastly, this study considers the limitations and raises the prospect of future studies in Section 6.

Examining the Moderating Role of Brand Loyalty among Consumers of Technology Products

“…Given that none of the previous studies have explored the moderating role of loyalty across these three different loyalty groups, the findings of this study are both novel and significant. It also complements other studies in the domain, such as customer loyalty and brand switching intention [5]. Further, given the fact that the brands considered by the respondents are global brands, we believe the findings have generalizability beyond UAE.…”

“…In today's highly competitive global market, one of the main challenges for organizations is to ensure business sustainability or the preservation of a business through time. Sustainability in marketing literature covering different aspects, such as sustainable reputation [2], sustainable brand management [3], sustainable online customers [4], and sustainable brand loyalty [5], has witnessed significant interest in recent years. Among these interrelated aspects, brand loyalty has emerged as a critical factor for sustainable business growth as it directly contributes to increased market share and profitability [6,7].…”

Effect of Trust in Domain-Specific Information of Safety, Brand Loyalty, and Perceived Value for Cosmetics on Purchase Intentions in Mobile E-Commerce Context

“…Prior to analyzing the proposed research model, the first step was to verify the reliability and convergent validity of the survey items, and the factor loading values had to exceed the recommended minimum measurement (0.7) to evidence that every item is an appropriate explanation for the dimensionality of the factors [1,2]. In this study, after conducting the construct validity measurement using item loading, average variance extraction (AVE) and composite reliability (CR), we had to ensure that Cronbach's α, factor loading, and CR were more than 0.7 and AVE was more than 0.5 [100,101], for the sake of validity acceptance [11,102].…”

“…From these results, it is interpreted that consumers with higher brand loyalty put more weight on perceived social values, such as public recognition and solidarity as members of society, rather than just on the perceived safety value for green-grade cosmetics. Since consumers with higher brand loyalty show lower brand switching intention [101], it is inferred that despite the positive effect on perceived social value of brand loyalty, the factor has an adverse impact on the intention to purchase green-grade cosmetics, which may be an alternative to brand cosmetics.…”

How to improve users’ intentions to continued usage of shared bicycles: A mixed method approach

“…Before using fsQCA to analyze the same data set on which SEM was used, it was necessary to calibrate the scales [55,56]. This was done by calculating the mean score of each construct, identifying three fuzzy conversion metrics as full membership (1), cross-over point (0.5) and full non-membership (0), and finally transferring the original data to continuous data from 0 to 1 through calculating scalars and log adds [57].…”