The Impact of Price Discount, Product Complementarity and Relational Investment on Customer Loyalty: Empirical Evidence from China’s Telecommunications Industry

The Effect of Customer-Brand Relationship Investments on Customer Engagement: An Imperative for Sustained Competitiveness

“…In addition, the results provided strong evidence that PBI and CI have a significant positive effect on customer engagement (CE). The results seemed to be consistent with previous studies that highlighted PBI (Aurier & de Lanauze 2012;Bolton et al 2003;Kim et al 2008;Shi et al 2011;Yen & Chu 2009;Yoon et al 2008) and CI (Bugel, Verhoef & Buunk 2011;Huang et al 2007;Jiang et al 2011;Nusair et al 2011;Sung & Campbell 2009;Tsai & Pai 2012) as among the dominating factors that affect relational outcomes. Accordingly, the findings clearly demonstrated that PBI acts as an important signal to the brand's determination in sustaining its relationship with customers as well as better future customer service.…”

“…Further, the results also showed that CI partially mediates the effect of PBI on customer engagement (CE). Accordingly, the findings are in congruent with previous studies that showed significant mediating role of CI (Chow & Tan 2013;Jiang et al 2011;Wieselquist 2009). Further, the findings showed that perceived level of brand investment may not only have a direct positive effect on CE, but also indirect effect through customer investment.…”

“…Applying the Relationship Investment model by Rusbult (1983), many prior studies suggested that customer investment significantly increases customer commitment (Bugel et al 2010;Huang et al 2007;Nusair et al 2011;Sung & Campbell 2009;Sung & Choi 2010) and loyalty (Jiang et al 2011;Li & Petrick 2008;Tsai & Pai 2012). Nonetheless, it decreases opportunistic behaviour and conflict with partner (Liu et al 2009;Luo et al 2009).…”

“…In particular, Wieselquist (2009) showed that individuals who trust their partners are more committed to their romantic relationship when they have made significant investment in the relationship. Subsequently, Jiang et al (2011) demonstrated that customer who valued the discounts given by the provider will invest significantly and thereby enhance their commitment to remain involved in the relationship. Meanwhile, Chow and Tan (2013) pointed out on the significance of investment size as a mediator in the effect of attachment to commitment.…”

A descriptive inventory study of recent China marketing research

“…In the research sample, 24 articles were found (24%) which dealt with marketing strategy. Topics investigated include the following: branding (Ga et al, 2006;Bennet, 2008;Wang et al, 2009;Fu et al, 2009;Bodet, 2010;Chen et al, 2011;Chaoying et al, 2011;Leng and Zhang, 2011), distribution channels (Wing, 1994;Luk et al, 2003;Yi and Jaffe, 2007;Sternquist and Wang, 2010), pricing (Tian et al, 2005;Liu and Tang, 2005;Zhang and Zhou, 2010;Jiang et al, 2011), product positioning (Skallerud and Grønhaug, 2010), and service quality (Prugsamatz and Ofstad, 2006;Gebauer and von Zedtwitz, 2007;Stanworth, 2009). From this, it can be seen that branding was the most popular topic for authors writing about marketing strategy in China.…”