دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی اثرات وابستگی ساختاری و پیوند مبتنی بر وفاداری برند - امرالد 2017

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the effects of structural and bonding attachment on brand loyalty. The authors identified network quality, network coverage and mobile number portability (MNP) as structural elements of attachment that affect brand loyalty. Similarly, the authors identify brand trust and social interaction ties as elements of bonding-based attachment that affects brand loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employed a survey as the research design. There were 500 respondents who were customers of telecommunication network brands in Ghana. Data collected were analyzed using the partial least square approach to structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) on SmartPLS 3. Findings – The findings indicate that structural and bonding-based attachments affect the brand loyalty. Specifically, the authors found that network coverage, network quality, brand trust and social interaction ties have positive effects on brand loyalty while MNP has a negative effect on brand loyalty. Originality/value – This study conceptualizes attachment from both structural and bonding perspectives, which are rare in the marketing literature. Thus, this study advances the conceptualization of attachment in the marketing literature.

Discussion of findings

The study posited that the factors that determine brand loyalty in the telecommunication industry are network coverage, brand trust, MNP, network quality and social interaction ties. Findings of the study reveal that network coverage are an important factor that determines brand loyalty (β ¼ 0.145, p ¼ 0.001). This means that it is important for telecommunication companies in Ghana to expand their networks to cover several places in the country and outside of the country as well. Previous studies (e.g. Lai et al., 2009) have also confirmed the importance of network coverage as a factor that determines brand loyalty. The consumers would also perceive that the service provider provides more telecommunication services than their competitors.

As stated earlier, network quality was also found to be a significant positive predictor of brand loyalty (β ¼ 0.240, p ¼ 0.000). Network quality contributes to the satisfaction level of consumers; hence, the development of loyalty. Network quality has become a critical dimension that forms customers’ perception of service quality of cell phone service providers (Chakraborty and Sengupta, 2013). When network quality is good, call drop rate reduces which means there is a high call completion rate. Consumers also perceive the importance of signal as it ensures good connectivity for quality information to be shared. Connectivity is vital for quality of information to be shared, hence it avoids disconnections (Chan and Leung, 2003). Due to this, consumers can anticipate a realistic time between placing a call and the actual connection to the receiving party (Kim and Shin, 2008).