Exploring customer engagement in the product vs. service contextBehnam, M., Hollebeek, L. D., Clark, M. K. and Farabi, R. (2021) Exploring customer engagement in the product vs. service context. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 60. 102456. ISSN 0969-6989
It is advisable to refer to the publisher's version if you intend to cite from this work. See Guidance on citing. To link to this item DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102456 Abstract/SummaryThough customer engagement (CE) is heralded as a strategic organizational imperative, empirically derived insight into its nomological network remains sparse. Extending existing research, we therefore test service-dominant logic-informed CE vis-à-vis its key antecedents of knowledge sharing and learning, and its consequences of customer cocreation and relationship quality. We also envisage the existence of CE-based differences across physical goods- versus service contexts, leading us to include the nature of the offering (good vs. service) as a moderating factor in our model, making a novel contribution. To test the model, a survey was conducted in the tangible sports goods (retail) and -club (i.e. service) contexts. The findings substantiate a positive effect of customer learning and knowledge sharing on CE, thus empirically validating conceptual literature-based claims. In addition, CE was found to exert a favorable effect on customer cocreation and relationship quality. Moreover, the results confirm our hypothesized moderating effect by revealing the framework’s stronger associations for service- (vs. product-based) CE. We conclude by discussing key implications that arise from our analyses.
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