5. Discussion and implications
The main interest of the present research was to identify the possible relationships among multiple cognitive dimensions (i.e., brand awareness, perceived quality, brand image, and perceived value), affective factors (i.e., pleasure and arousal), brand satisfaction, relationship commitment, and brand loyalty by proposing and testing a sturdy theoretical model in a chain coffee shop context. A quantitative methodological approach was used for the achievement of research objectives. The empirical results demonstrated that cognitive drivers in general played an important role in triggering pleasure and arousal; these affective factors act as important drivers of brand satisfaction, relationship commitment, and brand loyalty; affective dimensions, satisfaction, and commitment included a mediating impact; and, brand satisfaction along with pleasure are particularly important in building chain coffee shop customers’ brand loyalty within the our theoretical framework. In sum, the proposed research framework satisfactorily accounted for the total variance in brand loyalty; the hypothesized relationships within the model were generally supported.
Undoubtedly, increasing the level of brand loyalty has become one of the most critical and challenging issues in the competitive chain coffee shop industry. Nonetheless, patrons’ loyalty formation for a specific chain coffee shop brand has not been sufficiently unearthed. This study was to fill such void in the extant hospitality literature. The proposed conceptual framework comprising multiple cognitive drivers, affective factors, satisfaction, and commitment was fully supported, and the particular role of these variables within the model was explicitly identified. The proposed theoretical framework contained a strong explanatory power for patrons’ brand loyalty and sufficiently explained such loyalty generation process. Considering that the theoretical basis for comprehending the nature of coffee shop patrons’ purchasing behaviors is still in the stage of development, the empirical results would be helpful for subsequent research about patrons’ decision-making process and pre-/post-purchase behaviors for a coffee house product. Findings in this research are theoretically meaningful, and thus could be of great value in a hospitality sector. Even though a specific chain coffee shop was considered as the research background of this study, the results may be applied to other chain coffee shop operations.
