The Performance Implications of Media Richness in a Business-to-Business Service Environment: Direct Versus Indirect Effects

Shawnee K. Vickery (), Cornelia Droge (), Theodore P. Stank (), Thomas J. Goldsby () and Robert E. Markland ()
Additional contact information
Shawnee K. Vickery: Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, The Eli Broad College of Business, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824
Cornelia Droge: Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, The Eli Broad College of Business, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824
Theodore P. Stank: Department of Marketing and Logistics, College of Business Administration, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996
Thomas J. Goldsby: Department of Marketing and Logistics, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210
Robert E. Markland: Department of Management Science, Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208

Management Science, 2004, vol. 50, issue 8, 1106-1119

Abstract: This research examines media richness by modeling face-to-face, telephone, and electronic media as one construct and testing its performance implications. The context is the third-party logistics industry, in which a customer firm allows a service provider to assume responsibility for all or part of a critical business process. This business-to-business service environment is characterized by high levels of complexity (uncertainty, variability, equivocality) and network interdependence, key contextual attributes that enhance media richness' impact. We found a direct effect of media richness on relational performance and through it, indirect effects on satisfaction and loyalty. Furthermore, we found a direct effect of media richness on loyalty, which suggests that service firms in networked relationships provide loyalty-inducing benefits the genesis of which is not in the satisfaction created by the service itself. While past studies have examined the relationship of richness-related constructs and performance, no significant link was found. Our study is the first to demonstrate that media richness can affect firm performance when businesses interact in a complex environment.

Keywords: media richness; service quality; relational performance; third-party logistics; customer satisfaction; customer loyalty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1040.0248 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:50:y:2004:i:8:p:1106-1119

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().