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Creating commitment and loyalty behavior among retailers: what are the roles of service quality and satisfaction?

  • Original Empirical Research
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Abstract

As a result of weakening brand image/loyalty, little differentiation, and intense price competition, manufacturers are now increasingly pressed to ensure retailers’ shelf space and/or salesperson attention. This research contributes to the literature by empirically examining an underrepresented body of literature in the B2B context—retailer loyalty. Specifically, this study fills a gap by investigating retailer evaluations of the technical and relational dimensions of a manufacturer’s order fulfillment service quality as predictors of retailer satisfaction, affective versus calculative commitment, and ultimately loyalty behavior. Results suggest that both technical and relational order fulfillment service quality influence satisfaction, which in turn positively affects both affective and calculative commitment. By separating the affective and calculative dimensions, loyalty behavior is associated directly only with affective commitment. Further examination reveals that relational order fulfillment service quality has a direct impact on affective commitment. When the sample was split based on “share of wallet,” results suggest that satisfaction impacts both affective and calculative commitment, regardless of “share of wallet.” For “high share” retailers, the positive relationship of calculative to affective commitment creates an indirect route (through affective commitment) by which calculative commitment affects behavioral loyalty.

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Notes

  1. We reviewed literature from 1997 through 2007 in the “mainstream” marketing journals: Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and the Journal of Retailing.

  2. Although not specifically “loyalty” studies, we found exceptions to this in the marketing literature outside the limits of the review included in Table 1. These exceptions include De Ruyter et al. (2001) and Wetzels et al. (1998).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Assistant Professor, Department of Marketing, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, 40292, USA

    Beth Davis-Sramek

  2. Professor of Marketing, The Eli Broad College of Business, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Cornelia Droge

  3. Bruce Excellence Chair of Business, Department of Marketing and Logistics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    John T. Mentzer

  4. Nestle Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing and Logistics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Matthew B. Myers

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  1. Beth Davis-Sramek
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  2. Cornelia Droge
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  3. John T. Mentzer
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  4. Matthew B. Myers
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Correspondence to Beth Davis-Sramek.

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Davis-Sramek, B., Droge, C., Mentzer, J.T. et al. Creating commitment and loyalty behavior among retailers: what are the roles of service quality and satisfaction?. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 37, 440–454 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-009-0148-y

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