Discussion
In summary, although several previous studies presented customer engagement as one of the most important emerging concepts in the marketing domain, the current paper contributes by applying the emerging literature of customer engagement in the B2B environment.
First, exploring the different concepts of customer engagement as attitude, behavior or value based, Brodie et al. (2011) defined engagement as a psychological state formed from customer experiences based on dealing with a specific element of the brand. Whereas levels of customer engagement differ, and depending on situations, defined engagement as an attitude. On the other hand, other researchers (Van Doorn et al., 2010) defined engagement as behavioral manifestations that a customer exerts towards a company or a brand. Consequently, according to that definition, taking an action or behavior is the basic element distinguishing between engaged or disengaged customers.
A general definition that covers all customers’ activities was introduced by Pansari and Kumar (2017) they defined engagement as the process of a customer's value addition to the firm. This study showed the importance of engagement, since disengaged customers may cause dissatisfaction with firms through negative word-of-mouth or reviews or any other behavior; therefore, engagement might include negative effects as well as positive ones (Van Doorn et al., 2010).
Second, reviewing previous studies indicates that the engagement process had an iterative nature which made consequences of engagement relations antecedents in other sequential engagement cycles (Hollebeek, 2011; Brodie et al., 2011).
