دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی مدیریت ارتباط با مشتری در بازارهای در حال ظهور - guanxi به عنوان محرک وفاداری - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

Guanxi, a social exchange mechanism built on mutual favors, is an integral part of Chinese culture and a necessary relationship management tool for businesses operating in the People's Republic of China (PRC). This paper uses the cognition-affect-conation trajectory to illustrate the subtle differences between guanxi approach and the conventional relationship marketing approaches on customer loyalty and word-of-mouth intentions. This process is mediated by calculative trust and affective attitude toward the service provider, while operationalizing the in-group identification construct to gauge in-group membership. Findings from a field-survey with Chinese retail-banking customers (N = 420) support most of the hypotheses. Besides extending relationship marketing literature by highlighting the need to incorporate unique aspects of different cultures (especially in the emerging markets), this paper also provides many useful managerial implications and directions for future research on phenomena similar to guanxi (e.g., “blat” in Russia, “wa” in Japan and “inhwa” in Korea).

4. Discussion

This study examines the impact of guanxi (as reflected by its three components) on customer loyalty and WOM intentions, and the mediating roles of calculative trust and attitude toward the service employee (bank) in this process, while operationalizing the in-group identification construct to gauge in-group membership. The results from a survey-based study with Chinese retail-banking customers confirm that guanxi does not have a direct effect on loyalty behaviors and instead calculative trust and attitude toward the bank fully mediate this effect. Interestingly, guanxi has a direct effect on customers' WOM intentions but this effect is not mediated by calculative trust and only partially mediated by affective attitude toward the bank. In-group identification has a positive effect on loyalty behaviors but not on WOM intentions. All these findings support the basic premise of this research that guanxi has an impact on loyalty behaviors in the Chinese cultural context, while calculative trust and affective attitude toward the service employee and provider mediate this process.