 Cultivating loyal customers through online customer communities: A psychological contract perspectiveQingqing Bi Journal of Business Research, 2019, vol. 103, issue C, 34-44 Abstract: Despite a number of empirical studies showcasing the power of online customer communities in fostering customer loyalty, the underlying theoretical foundations for this phenomenon remain unclear. Drawing upon psychological contract theory, this study aims to provide a new perspective to understand the exchange relationship between e-retailers and customers through online customer communities. The proposed research model extends the classic trust-commitment framework and incorporates the constructs of feelings of gratitude and personal reciprocity. It addresses the psychological process in relationship development and opens the “black box” between higher-order mental constructs to investigate loyalty. The results of this study indicate that in order to build effective loyalty programs and generate economic benefits from investments in online customer communities, e-retailers should improve customers' awareness of the benefits they receive from these communities, design appropriate strategies to motivate customers' feelings of gratitude, and activate customers' gratitude-based reciprocal behaviors. Keywords: Online customer community; Relationship marketing; Psychological contract; Customer loyalty (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:103:y:2019:i:c:p:34-44 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.06.005 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier |
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