European Journal of MarketingHow commitment both enables and undermines marketing relationshipsGordon Fullerton

Article information:To cite this document:Gordon Fullerton, (2005),"How commitment both enables and undermines marketing relationships",European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 39 Iss 11/12 pp. 1372 - 1388Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/03090560510623307

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How commitment both enablesand undermines marketing

relationshipsGordon Fullerton

Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada

Abstract

Purpose – The relationship marketing literature puts forward that customer commitment is centralto the development of marketing relationships. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent towhich two components of customer commitment (affective commitment and continuance commitment)both enhance and undermine customer loyalty.

Design/methodology/approach – A theoretical model was developed to determine the extent towhich the components of commitment both served as mediators of and interacted with one another inthe relationship between service quality and switching and advocacy intentions. This model wasexamined in a survey of customers in three service settings; financial services, retail-grocery servicesand telecommunications services.

Findings – Commitment serves as a partial mediator of the service quality-loyalty relationship. Itwas also found that affective commitment made a negative impact on switching intentions and apositive impact on advocacy intentions in all three service settings. Continuance commitment hadmixed effects on switching intentions and made a negative impact on advocacy intentions.. At thesame time there was an interactive effect between the two components of commitment such thatcontinuance commitment depressed the positive effects of affective commitment on both dependentvariables.

Originality/value – While the positive impact of identification based affective commitment is wellunderstood in the marketing literature, the role of continuance commitment is not so well appreciated.This study reinforces the weakness of a relationship based on continuance commitment. In addition,few studies prior to this one have demonstrated the interactive effects between the two components ofcommitment.

Keywords Relationship marketing, Customer loyalty, Services, Canada

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionThe notion that service firms must be concerned with the development andmanagement of relationships with their customers is not new (Sheth and Parvatiyar,2002). It has been thought that services industries were natural settings for relationshipmarketing because the intangible nature of services and the inseparability of theservice from the service provider were conducive to the development of relationalexchange (Berry, 1995; Bitner, 1995). In recent years, a significant body of literature hasbeen produced on the nature of service relationships (Bansal et al., 2004; Fullerton,2003; Garbarino and Johnson, 1999; Gruen et al., 2000: Harrison-Walker, 2001). For themost part, these recent studies have been built upon the commitment as mediator

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

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The author would like to thank the Editors, the anonymous reviewers and Roland Rust for theircomments on previous versions of this paper.

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Received November 2004

European Journal of MarketingVol. 39 No. 11/12, 2005pp. 1372-1388q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0309-0566DOI 10.1108/03090560510623307

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hypothesis (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). The central position of this hypothesis is thatcustomer commitment is a key mediator of the relationship between the customer’sevaluations of a firm’s performance and the customer’s intentions regarding the futurerelationship with the firm (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). This hypothesis has receivedsignificant empirical support in recent years in both business-to-business andbusiness-to-consumer environments (Bansal et al., 2004; Garbarino and Johnson, 1999;Gruen et al., 2000; Pritchard et al., 1999).

Marketing scholars have also recognized that commitment has multiplecomponents and they have borrowed from the organizational behaviour literature,bringing significant insight on the nature of organizational commitment to the study ofcustomer commitment (Bansal et al., 2004; Fullerton, 2003; Gundlach et al., 1995; Gruenet al., 2000; Harrison-Walker, 2001). Given that customer commitment has multiplecomponents, it is important to recognize that the components of customer commitmentmay not have the same effect on customer loyalty. While there is ample support for theposition that customer commitment facilitates the development of marketingrelationships, there is also ample evidence that customers sometimes feel trapped inmarketing relationships. This basic research question examined in this paper iswhether or not customer commitment in service relationships always leads to increasesin customer loyalty. In particular, it is important to consider the extent to which thespecific components of customer commitment enhance and potentially detract fromcustomer loyalty.

First, the paper will discuss the nature of both the service quality and commitmentconstructs because a good understanding of these constructs is crucial to thedevelopment of good theory about the workings of service relationships. Servicequality is a key construct of investigation in the services marketing literature and it isperhaps the most important antecedent of customer loyalty in services industries (Fisket al., 1993 Zeithaml, 2000). This discussion of service quality will be followed up with adiscussion of customer commitment. While there are many constructs of interest in thearea of relationship marketing, customer commitment has emerged as perhaps themost important construct of interest in explaining important relational dependentvariables (Bansal et al., 2004; Morgan and Hunt, 1994). This review of the centralconstructs in both services and relationship marketing will be used to map out anintegrated conceptual model of the role that customer commitment plays in servicemarketing relationships. At this point the paper will outline the methodology used totest this theoretical model. Next, the paper will report the results of theseinvestigations. The paper will close with a discussion of the theoretical and managerialimplications of the findings.

The nature of service qualityService quality is one of the most investigated constructs in the history of marketingscholarship and it is clearly the most investigated construct in the field of servicesmarketing (Iacobucci, 1998). Service quality is an overall evaluation of the perceivedlevel of service performance (Parasuraman et al., 1988). There has been considerablediscussion in the literature about the proper operationalization of the service qualityconstruct (Brady and Cronin, 2001; Carman, 1990; Cronin and Taylor, 1992;Parasuraman et al., 1988). This continues to be an ongoing debate but it is clear thatservice quality is a complex construct, determined by a number service related

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antecedent evaluations including responsiveness to waits (Hui and Tse, 1996; Taylor,1994), the interaction with service personnel (Brady and Cronin, 2001), the empathy ofservice personnel (Parasuraman et al., 1988), responsiveness to service failures(Keaveney, 1995; Parasuraman et al., 1988), the service environment and atmospherics(Brady and Cronin, 2001; Parasuraman et al. 1988) and the reliability of the service(Parasuraman et al., 1988).

Overall service quality has been regarded as being similar to an attitude because itwas thought to be an overall evaluation of the service based on its perceived goodness(Iacobucci, 1998). Attitudes are summary evaluations of objects on a positive tonegative continuum, which direct intentions and behaviour (Petty et al., 1997). Servicequality is frequently conceptualized and measured as an overall, evaluativeattitude-like construct (Brady and Cronin, 2001; Taylor, 1994; Taylor and Baker,1994), regardless of the number of distinct antecedent evaluations formally leading tothe overall evaluation. Even though the service quality as attitude proposition has notbeen subjected to much empirical and conceptual debate, the conventional wisdom isthat the overall evaluative nature of service quality makes it an attitude or attitude-likeconstruct (Cronin and Taylor, 1992). Given this conceptualization, service-marketingscholars have logically attempted to draw a link between service quality evaluationsand relevant behavioural intentions and/or behaviours. For the most part, servicequality has been regarded as a construct that makes a positive impact on customerloyalty (Zeithaml, 2000).

The nature of commitmentCommitment is a force of psychological attachment (O’Reilly and Chatman, 1986).Commitment is viewed as a central construct in the relationship marketing literature(Morgan and Hunt, 1994) and there are various views about the nature of the construct.Many of these definitions assume that commitment is an attitudinal construct(Gilliland and Bello, 2002). This enables researchers in the area to focus on therelationship between customer commitment attitude and a number of relationalintentions and/or behaviours. Commitment has been viewed as an implicit or explicitpledge of continuity between relational partners (Dwyer et al., 1987). It has also beendefined as mutuality and the forsaking of alternatives (Gundlach et al., 1995). Othershave defined commitment as an enduring desire to maintain a valuable relationship(Moorman et al., 1992). Accordingly, marketing scholars should regard customercommitment as a psychological force linking the consumer to the selling organization.

These definitions mirror those in the organizational behaviour literature wherecommitment is viewed as a construct that links the employee to the employingorganization (Allen and Meyer, 1990; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; O’Reilly and Chatman,1986). This is relevant because a number of marketing scholars have directly borrowedfrom the organizational commitment literature to inform our understanding of thenature of customer commitment (Fullerton, 2003; Gilliland and Bello, 2002; Gruen et al.,2000; Gundlach et al., 1995; Harrison-Walker, 2001; Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Thedominant position in the organizational behaviour literature is that commitmentcontains at least an affective component and a continuance component (Allen andMeyer, 1990; O’Reilly and Chatman, 1986).

The position that customer commitment has both an affective and continuancecomponent has support in the marketing literature (Bansal et al., 2004; Fullerton,

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2003; Gilliland and Bello, 2002; Gruen et al., 2000; Harrison-Walker, 2001). For themost part, commitment in marketing scholarship has been operationalized asaffective commitment (Fullerton, 2003). In their important study on the roles of trustand commitment in marketing relationships, Morgan and Hunt (1994) substantiallyoperationalized commitment as affective commitment by adapting their measure ofcommitment from the Allen and Meyer (1990) affective commitment scale. Affectivecommitment in marketing relationships has its base in shared values, trust,benevolence, and relationalism (Fullerton, 2003; Garbarino and Johnson, 1999;Gilliland and Bello, 2002; Gruen et al., 2000; Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Affectivecommitment exists when the individual consumer identifies with and is attached totheir relational partner (Fullerton, 2003; Gruen et al., 2000). Overall, consumersshould be viewed as being affectively committed to a service provider when theylike their service provider, regardless of the type of the service that is beingconsumed.

Continuance commitment in marketing relationships is rooted in switching costs,sacrifice, lack of choice and dependence (Bendapudi and Berry, 1997; Dwyer et al., 1987;Fullerton, 2003; Gilliland and Bello, 2002; Gundlach et al., 1995; Heide and John, 1992).In part, continuance commitment has its base in Becker’s (1960) theory of side-betswhere the consumer is bound to a relational partner because of the potential thatextra-relational benefits would be lost in the event of a switch. At the same time,scarcity of alternatives is also an important causal antecedent of the psychologicalstate of continuance commitment (McGee and Ford, 1987). Continuance commitmentmay well explain why consumers sometimes feel trapped in marketing relationshipswhen they cannot easily exit the relationship (Fournier et al., 1998). The nature ofcontinuance commitment is that customers can be committed to the relationshipbecause they feel that ending the relationship involves an economic or social sacrificeor because they have no choice but to maintain the current relationship. Thepsychological state of continuance commitment represents what has been termed bysome as the dark-side of relationship marketing (Fournier et al., 1998).

An Integrated model of commitment in service relationshipsBoth the services marketing literature and the relationship marketing literature seek toexplain many of the same dependent variables. Customer retention and advocacy,which have been identified as important behavioural consequences of service quality(Zeithaml et al., 1996), also fit within the domain of constructs outlined by Morgan andHunt (1994) as the consequences of commitment in marketing relationships.Researchers who have examined service relationships are frequently interested inexplaining customer retention or service switching (Bansal et al., 2004; Gruen et al.,2000; Garbarino and Johnson, 1999; Fullerton, 2003). Advocacy, or the act of being areference customer, has also been an important dependent variable in servicerelationship research (Fullerton, 2003; Harrison-Walker, 2001). As a central,key-mediating construct in relationship marketing, commitment explains therelationship between a number of background evaluative variables and constructs(relationship benefits, communication and trust) and a number of behaviouraldependent variables (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Figure 1 outlines an integratedstructural model of the role that commitment plays in the relationship between servicequality and both switching intentions and advocacy intentions.

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In the study of service relationships, service quality is a natural independentvariable because of the dominant position that it holds in the services marketingliterature (Iacobucci, 1998). Customer retention (Bansal and Taylor, 1999; Cronin andTaylor, 1992; Fullerton and Taylor, 2002; Gottlieb et al., 1994; Keaveney, 1995; Olsenand Johnson, 2003; Rust et al., 1995; Zeithaml et al., 1996) and advocacy (Anderson,1998; Fullerton and Taylor, 2002; Zeithaml et al., 1996) have been well-investigatedloyalty-related behavioural consequences of service quality. For both behaviouralconsequences, researchers have found that service quality makes a positive impact.The service quality literature has put forward that consumers respond to favourableservice quality evaluations by continuing to purchase services from that provider(Parasuraman et al., 1988). At the same time, customers who are pleased with the levelof quality delivered by a service provider are willing to recommend that organizationto other customers (Anderson, 1998; Zeithaml et al., 1996). These findings are entirelyconsistent with the service quality as attitude proposition in that the service qualityevaluation/attitude brings forward intentions regarding future behaviour with respectto the service provider (Bansal and Taylor, 1999; Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Fullertonand Taylor, 2002; Zeithaml et al., 1996).

H1. Service quality is negatively related to switching intentions.

H2. Service quality is positively related to advocacy intentions.

In addition the overall service quality construct subsumes the constructs of reliabilityand responsiveness in a multidimensional perspective of service quality (Brady andCronin, 2001; Parasuraman et al., 1988). These variables are conceptually quite similarto relational constructs such as trust and shared values which Morgan and Hunt (1994)identified as proximal antecedents of commitment. These cognitive evaluations ofperformance over time can be expected to build affective attachment becausecustomers tend to like relational partners that provide benefits to them. In building anintegrated model of service relationships, overall service quality can be viewed as animmediate antecedent of customer affective commitment in service relationships. Thisproposition has received some empirical support in the services marketing andrelationship marketing literature (Gruen et al., 2000).

H3. Service quality is positively related to affective customer commitment.

Consumers experience continuance commitment when they are dependent on arelational partner (Fullerton, 2003; Gruen et al., 2000). Dependence is caused by a

Figure 1.Service relationships:integrated model

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number of conditions, including side-bets, scarcity of alternatives and contracts(Anderson and Weitz, 1992; Fullerton, 2003). A customer could be locked into doingbusiness with a service provider, regardless of the level of perceived benefits received(Barnes, 1997). In this situation, the consumer may perceive that few alternatives existoutside the current relationship. This applies whether there is a real scarcity ofalternatives imposed by monopoly-market conditions (Barnes, 1997), contracts(Anderson and Weitz, 1992) or merely perceived as a condition in the externalenvironment. Regardless, when consumers perceive few alternatives outside theexisting relationship they feel dependent on their partner. Perceived scarcity ofalternatives outside the existing relationship gives rise to continuance commitment.

H4. Scarcity of alternatives is positively related to continuance customercommitment.

In a relationship, consumers can experience both continuance and affectivecommitment to varying levels at any one point in time (Gilliland and Bello, 2002;Fullerton, 2003). High levels of customer commitment are not necessarily desirable,from the perspective of the service provider as the relationship between commitmentand customer retention and advocacy may depend upon the component of commitmenthighlighted in the relationship (Fullerton, 2003; Gilliland and Bello, 2002). Theorganizational behaviour literature can help us tease out these complex relationshipsas marketing scholars have borrowed from the significant body of literature onemployment relationships to inform our understanding of consumer-organizationrelationships (Fullerton, 2003; Gilliland and Bello, 2002; Gruen et al., 2000;Harrison-Walker, 2001; Morgan and Hunt, 1994).

In employment relationships affective commitment has been shown to be stronglyand positively related to employee retention in organizations (Allen and Meyer, 1990;Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Mayer and Schoorman, 1992; O’Reilly and Chatman, 1986).The link between affective commitment and customer retention is a well-researchedtopic in relationship marketing. Affective commitment has been shown to make auniformly positive impact on customer retention (Fullerton, 2003; Garbarino andJohnson, 1999; Gruen et al., 2000; Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Pritchard et al., 1999). Others(Price and Arnould, 1999) have recognized that positive affect lies at the heart of manycustomer-service provider relationships where the consumer exhibits frequentrepurchase patronage.

H5. Affective customer commitment is negatively related to switching intentions.

In the organizational behaviour literature, affective commitment has been shown to bestrongly and positively related to employee organizational citizenship behaviours,including advocacy (Allen and Meyer, 1990; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). It is reasonable toexpect that consumers who feel a psychological connection with their service providerwill act as favourable reference customers for the organization (Price and Arnould,1999). Other researchers in marketing have identified a strong positive relationshipbetween affective commitment and advocacy and customer citizenship behaviours inservice industries (Fullerton, 2003; Gruen et al., 2000; Harrison-Walker, 2001). Whencustomers identify with a relational partner and have pleasant feelings about therelationship they will gladly recommend that partner to people that they care about.

H6. Affective customer commitment is positively related to advocacy.

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Dependence based commitment is also a well-studied phenomenon in relationshipmarketing. Customers sometimes remain in a relationship because they find it difficultto get out of the relationship. For the most part, researchers have identified a positiverelationship between continuance-type commitment and customer retention (Fournieret al., 1998; Fullerton, 2003; Grayson and Ambler, 1999). Bansal and Taylor (1999)found that consumer perceptions about the ease of switching were positively related toswitching intentions in financial services. Anderson and Weitz (1992) found thatpledges, contracts and investments (important indicators of continuance commitment)caused consumers to maintain a relationship. These findings mirror those in theorganizational commitment literature where continuance commitment is positively,but weakly related to employee retention (Allen and Meyer, 1990; Mathieu and Zajac,1990). The reason for this is that the consumer may be forced to stay in a relationshipbuilt on continuance commitment but they will look to get out of the relationship whengiven an opportunity.

H7. Continuance customer commitment is negatively related to switchingintentions.

In employment relationships, continuance commitment makes a negative impact onthe probability of employees engaging in pro-social behaviours in the workplace (Allenand Meyer, 1990; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). Few studies have examined the effect ofcontinuance commitment on advocacy and positive word of mouth behaviour in amarketing relationship (Gruen et al., 2000; Fullerton, 2003; Harrison-Walker, 2001).Consumers who are committed to a service provider by continuance may feel trappedin the marketing relationship (Fournier et al., 1998). They may react against thesefeelings of entrapment by spreading negative word of mouth communications againsttheir captors or at the very least, failing to act as advocates on behalf of their relationalpartner (Fullerton, 2003; Harrison-Walker, 2001).

H8. Continuance customer commitment is negatively related to advocacyintentions.

Affective commitment and continuance commitments are not orthogonal constructsand individuals may feel both psychological states at any point in time (Allen andMeyer, 1990). Continuance commitment has been shown to undermine the positiveeffects of affective commitment in marketing relationships. Fullerton (2003) found thatcontinuance commitment moderated the relationship between affective commitmentand both customer retention and advocacy. The nature of this interactive effect wassuch that the relationship between affective commitment and both customer retentionand advocacy became less positive as customers experienced higher levels ofcontinuance commitment (Fullerton, 2003). The conceptual rationale for this position isthat consumer feelings about being stuck in the relationship come to over-ride anypositive feelings emerging from identification and attachment. Even if consumers likea relational partner, they may hope to get out of a relationship if they feel partlytrapped in that relationship. Others who have examined the effects of variables that areconceptually similar to affective and continuance commitment in organizationalbuyer-sell relationships have found evidence that the constructs interact in their effectson relational dependent variables (Izquierdo and Cillan, 2004; Joshi and Arnold, 1997).

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These processes have been investigated in the organizational behaviour literatureas well. For example, Meyer and Herscovitch (2001) found that continuancecommitment reduced the positive impact on affective commitment to the organizationon important work-place behaviours. Similarly, Somers and Birnbaum (2000) providedsome basic support for the position that there is a moderating relationship betweenaffective and continuance commitment on employee behaviours in the workplace. Forthe most part, we would expect that continuance commitment in a marketingrelationship would negatively impact the positive effects of affective customercommitment on both switching and advocacy intentions.

H9. There is an interaction between affective and continuance customercommitment such that the negative relationship between affective customercommitment and switching intentions becomes less negative at higher levelsof continuance customer commitment.

H10. There is an interaction between affective and continuance customercommitment such that the positive relationship between affective customercommitment and advocacy intentions becomes less positive at higher levels ofcontinuance customer commitment.

Methodology and measuresThe hypotheses were tested using a closed-ended survey in three service settings;banking services, telecommunications services and grocery retail services. Theseservice settings were selected in part because of ease in data collection because they arewidely consumed. In addition, they differ in terms of their service attributes includingdegree of tangibility and the degree to which credence is in a core feature of the service.Thus there is good potential to generalize the findings across service industries.Participants were asked to reflect upon their relationship with their bank,telecommunications service provider and grocery store. The data in the bankingsurvey was collected by personal interview from consumers who were randomlyapproached after leaving a particular branch at a particular Canadian bank located in alarge Canadian city. The data in the telecommunications survey was collected by mallintercept in a large Canadian city over two days. The data in the grocery retail surveywas collected by store exit-survey over three days in a large Canadian city. The refusalrate for the mall-intercept survey and the store exit-survey was approximately 40 percent. The refusal rate was approximately 60 per cent in the bank-exit interview. Thehigher refusal rate in the bank setting may have been a partial result of the interviewbeing conducted on the street (rather than indoors as was the case in the other servicesettings). These processes resulted in 220 completed surveys in the banking servicesetting, 206 for telecommunications services and 208 in retail grocery services.

Overall service quality was measured with three items previously employed byTaylor and Baker (1994). Affective and continuance commitment were each measuredwith three items drawn from the Allen and Meyer (1990) organizational commitmentscale. While the full Allen and Meyer (1990) affective and continuance commitmentscales each consist of eight items, other marketing scholars (Fullerton, 2003; Bansalet al., 2004) have used a three-item subset of each scale to operationalize these constructsin a marketing context. Switching and advocacy intentions were each measured withthree behavioural intention items adapted from Zeithaml et al. (1996). Alternative

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scarcity was measured by two items developed by Fullerton (2005). In the banking,telecommunications and grocery retail settings, all items (except one of the servicequality items) were measured on a nine-point Likert scale. One service quality item wasmeasured on a nine-point semantic differential scale. This was consistent with the waythat the scale was used by Taylor and Baker (1994) with no detrimental effect on thereliability of the scale. While this survey was not pre-tested, all survey items had beenused in previous studies. A complete listing of the items employed in this study andreports the scale reliabilities in each service setting can be found in Table I. All scalespossessed acceptable reliability in each service setting by surpassing the 0.80 criterionestablished by Nunnally and Bernstein (1994). The measurement and structural modelswere tested using AMOS 3.2 (Arbuckle, 1996). All models were estimated from thecovariance matrix with maximum likelihood estimation. In specifying the affectivecommitment by continuance commitment interaction term, the methods prescribed byPing (1995) were used in this study. In the examination of interaction effects withcross-sectional survey data it was necessary to mean centre all data before proceedingwith regression or SEM approaches to data analysis (Aitken and West, 1991).

ResultsThe measurement model offered an acceptable fit to the data in the banking servicessetting (x2 ¼ 159:5df104, p, .01; CFI ¼ 0:99; RMSEA ¼ 0:05; GFI ¼ 0:92, AGFI ¼ 0:89),the telecommunications services setting (x2 ¼ 151df104, p, .01; CFI ¼ 0:99;RMSEA ¼ 0:05; GFI ¼ 0:92, AGFI ¼ 0:88) and the retail grocery service setting(x2 ¼ 154:5df104, p, .01; CFI ¼ 0:99; RMSEA ¼ 0:05; GFI ¼ 0:92, AGFI ¼ 0:88). Thespecific items employed in this study, item factor-loadings, squared multiple correlationsfor the items and scale reliabilities for each service setting are shown in Table I.Convergent validity is established because all factor loadings are highly significant andalso have item squared multiple correlations (SMCs) of greater that 0.6 (Bagozzi and Yi,1988). Discrminant validity was assessed according to the methods outlined by Fornelland Larcker (1981). Strong discriminant validity was demonstrated because the squaredcorrelation between a pair of constructs was less than the average variance extracted(AVE) of each construct (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Table II shows a matrix of latentvariable correlations, with AVE shown on the diagonal, for each service setting.

The integrated model put forward in the conceptual development offered a verypromising fit to the data in all three service settings. This theoretical model had a goodfit to the data in the financial service (x2 ¼ 189df123, p, .01; CFI ¼ 0:99; RMSEA ¼ 0:05;GFI ¼ 0:92, AGFI ¼ 0:88), grocery retail service (x2 ¼ 235df123, p, .01;CFI ¼ 0:97;RMSEA ¼ 0:07; GFI ¼ 0:89, AGFI ¼ 0:85) and telecommunications service settings(x2 ¼ 202:2df123, p, .01; CFI ¼ 0:99; RMSEA ¼ 0:05; GFI ¼ 0:91, AGFI ¼ 0:87).Table III summarizes the path coefficients for all paths hypothesized in the model.

In examining this hypothesized model in more detail, all ten hypotheses receivedsome support. H1 was supported as service quality was negatively and significantlyrelated to switching intentions in all three service settings examined in this study. Thisfinding was consistent with a considerable body of literature in the area of servicesswitching (Bansal and Taylor, 1999; Zeithaml et al., 1996). There was also strongsupport for H2 as service quality was significantly and positively related to advocacyintentions in all three service settings, a finding that was also consistent with a widebody of literature on the relationship between service quality and advocacy (Anderson,

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Grocery CFA Banking CFA Telephone CFALoadings SMC Loadings SMC Loadings SMC

Service quality(a ¼ 0.96 grocery; a ¼ 0.96 banking;a ¼ 0.97 telephone)I believe the general quality of X’s serviceshigh 0.97 0.93 0.95 0.91 0.92 0.85Overall, I consider X’s service to beexcellent 0.96 0.92 0.95 0.91 0.98 0.96The quality of X’s service is: (1 ¼ poor;9 ¼ excellent) 0.91 0.83 0.92 0.85 0.96 0.92

Affective commitment(a ¼ 0.97 grocery; a ¼ 0.97 banking;a ¼ 0.98 telephone)I feel emotionally attached to X 0.97 0.93 0.98 0.96 0.96 0.93X has a great deal of personal meaning forme 0.97 0.94 0.98 0.95 0.98 0.96I feel a strong sense of identification with X 0.96 0.91 0.97 0.94 0.96 0.92

Continuance commitment(a ¼ 0.98 grocery; a ¼ 0.98 banking;a ¼ 0.96 telephone)It would be very hard for me to switchaway from X right now even if I wanted to 0.94 0.88 0.96 0.93 0.96 0.92My life would be disrupted if I switchedaway from X 0.98 0.96 0.98 0.95 0.97 0.95It would be too costly to switch from Xright now 0.98 0.97 0.96 0.93 0.97 0.94

Advocacy intentions(a ¼ 0.98 grocery; a ¼ 0.98 banking;a ¼ 0.98 telephone)Say positive things about X to other people 0.96 0.93 0.96 0.92 0.97 0.94Recommend X to someone who seeks youradvice 0.98 0.97 0.98 0.96 0.98 0.97Encourage friends and relatives to dobusiness with X 0.98 0.96 0.98 0.96 0.98 0.96

Switching intentions(a ¼ 0.98 grocery; a ¼ 0.97 banking;a ¼ 0.99 telephone)Do less business with X in the next year 0.96 0.93 0.96 0.93 0.98 0.96Take some of your business to one of X’scompetitors 0.98 0.96 0.97 0.95 0.99 0.98Switch to a competitor of X 0.96 0.93 0.94 0.88 0.97 0.94

Alternative scarcity(a ¼ 0.97 grocery; a ¼ 0.98 banking;a ¼ 0.95 telephone)Aside from X there are few choices in thismarket 0.96 0.93 0.97 0.94 0.97 0.93I have too few options to switch from X 0.97 0.94 0.99 0.97 0.94 0.88

Table I.Items, factor loadings and

squared multiplecorrelations

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Banking Telephone Grocery

Service quality-switching (H1) 20.35 * * * 20.31 * * * 20.30 * * *

Service quality-advocacy (H2) 0.32 * * * 0.22 * * * 0.38 * * *

Service quality-affective commitment (H3) 0.47 * * * 0.74 * * * 0.75 * * *

Alternative scarcity-continuancecommitment (H4) 0.86 * * * 0.87 * * * 0.88 * * *

Affective-switching (H5) 20.71 * * * 20.55 * * * 20.52 * * *

Affective-advocacy (H6) 0.58 * * * 0.71 * * * 0.46 * * *

Continuance-switching (H7) 20.08 * * 20.08 * * 0.08 *

Continuance-advocacy (H8) 20.28 * * * 20.10 * * 20.31 * * *

Affective *continuance-switching (H9) 0.04ns 0.26 * * * 0.14 * * *

Affective *continuance-advocacy (H10) 20.04ns 20.12 * * * 20.08 * * *

x2 189 202 236df 123 123 123GFI 0.92 0.91 0.89AGFI 0.88 0.87 0.85RMSEA 0.05 0.05 0.07CFI 0.99 0.99 0.97R 2 affective (%) 23 57 60R 2 continuance (%) 74 76 77R 2 switching (%) 86 74 63R 2 advocacy (%) 72 78 86

Notes: *p , 0.05; * *p , 0.01; * * *p , 0.001

Table III.Integrated model:parameter estimates, fitstatistics and varianceexplained

SQ AC CC SI AI AS

Grocery retail servicesService quality (SQ) 0.89Affective commitment (AC) 0.75 0.93Continuance commitment (CC) 20.45 20.54 0.94Switching intentions (SI) 20.70 20.75 0.44 0.94Advocacy intentions (AI) 0.82 0.86 20.68 20.79 0.95Alternative scarcity (AS) 20.39 0.41 0.87 0.34 20.57 0.93Banking servicesService quality (SQ) 0.89Affective commitment (AC) 0.47 0.96Continuance commitment (CC) 20.13 20.11 0.94Switching intentions (SI) 20.68 20.87 0.05 0.92Advocacy intentions (AI) 0.62 0.75 20.38 20.74 0.95Alternative scarcity (AS) 20.08 20.08 0.86 20.01 20.27 0.95Telephone servicesService quality (SQ) 0.91Affective commitment (AC) 0.74 0.94Continuance commitment (CC) 0.14 0.12 0.94Switching intentions (SI) 20.73 20.78 20.22 0.96Advocacy intentions (AI) 0.73 0.86 0.03 20.80 0.96Alternative scarcity (AS) 0.28 0.23 0.87 20.29 0.12 0.90

Table II.Latent variablecorrelation matrix andaverage varianceextracted (AVE)

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1998; Zeithaml et al., 1996). The hypothesis (H3) that service quality was positivelyrelated to affective commitment was supported in all three service settings. Thehypothesis that continuance commitment is rooted in scarcity of alternatives (H4)received support in all three service settings as scarcity of alternatives wassignificantly and positively related to continuance commitment.

In examining the effects of customer commitment, there was strong support for thehypothesis that affective commitment was negatively related to switching intentions(H5) in all three service settings. Affective commitment was also strongly andpositively related to advocacy intentions (H6) in all service settings examined in thisstudy, supporting the hypothesis. These findings are consistent with many otherstudies in the area of relationship marketing suggesting that the consequences ofaffective commitment are uniformly positive (Fullerton, 2003). In terms of theconsequences of continuance commitment there was mixed support for the hypothesisthat continuance commitment leads to customer retention (H7). In two service settings(banking and telecommunications) continuance commitment was significantly andnegatively related to switching intentions. These findings were consistent with thehypothesis. In the grocery retail service setting, continuance commitment wassignificantly and positively related to switching intentions. This was in contrary toexpectations. The hypothesis that continuance commitment is negatively related toadvocacy intentions (H8) received support in all three service settings. Overall, thefindings suggest that continuance commitment has at best a weak effect on customerretention but has a decidedly negative impact on word-of-mouth communications.

In terms of the hypotheses regarding the interactive effects of affective andcontinuance commitment, both hypothesis received some support. The hypothesis thatthere was an interaction between affective and continuance commitment on switchingintentions (H9) was supported in two (telecommunications and grocery retail) servicesettings. In both service settings where there was a significant affective-continuanceinteraction on switching intentions, it was in the direction hypothesized. Thehypothesis that there was an interaction between affective and continuancecommitment on advocacy intentions (H10) was supported in two(telecommunications and retail grocery) service settings. In addition, thesesignificant interactions were in the hypothesized direction. Overall, there was goodsupport for the position that the degree of continuance commitment present in arelationship changes the nature of the relationship between affective commitment andboth switching and advocacy intentions.

Theoretical and managerial implicationsThis study confirms some basic views in the area of relationship marketing. Consistentwith many other studies, affective commitment supports the development ofrelationships because the construct was found to be significantly and negativelyrelated to switching intentions and significantly and positively related to advocacyintentions. In addition, the results of this study are consistent with the general viewthat affective-type commitment plays a significant mediating role in servicerelationships. While affective commitment did not completely mediate the effects ofservice quality on the two loyalty-related dependent variables examined in this study,it played a significant partial mediating role. The implication of this finding is thatmarketing scholars and practitioners have to focus attention on both the evaluative

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forces (service quality) and the relational forces (customer commitment) that drivecrucial customer behaviours.

The results of this study are also somewhat consistent with other studies that haveexamined the simple effects of continuance commitment. At best, continuancecommitment has a weakly negative effect on switching intentions. It is clear thatcontinuance commitment has a much smaller effect on switching intentions thanaffective commitment (see Table III). This is also consistent with other studies thathave concluded that continuance commitment has a weaker effect than affectivecommitment on customer retention (Bansal et al., 2004; Gruen et al., 2000; Fullerton,2003). On the other hand, it was found that continuance commitment may heightenswitching intentions in a marketing relationship as there was a positive relationshipbetween continuance commitment and switching intentions in the grocery servicesetting. The conceptual rationale for this finding may be rooted in reactance theory(Brehm et al., 1966). There may be some situations where consumers react against theirpartners when they feel trapped and express a desire to get out of the relationship assoon as possible when they have the opportunity to exit the relationship (Fournier et al.,1998; Fullerton, 2003). In the case of grocery retailing, there are relatively few economicor psychological switching costs and continuance commitment may be a functionprimarily of convenience or perceptions that all retailers are essentially the same. Thus,they can feel a state of continuance commitment, yet be easily able to switch retailers.The study is also clearly consistent with other works that have demonstrated thatcontinuance commitment has a decidedly negative effect on advocacy (Fullerton, 2003;Harrison-Walker, 2001). Customers who feel trapped in their service relationships willbe very unlikely to act as reference customers on behalf of their relational partners.This is important because organizations in competitive markets are increasinglyreliant on their existing customer base as a source of new customers (Reichheld, 2003).

This study is one of a small number of studies that have examined potentialinteractive effects between the two dominant forms of commitment in marketingrelationships. This is not a well-investigated and understood issue in the area ofrelationship marketing. Bansal et al. (2004) hypothesized, but did not find any significantinteraction between affective and continuance commitment on switching intentions in astudy of automotive repair services. While these authors examined only one servicesetting, they did acknowledge that interaction effects are sometimes difficult to test withcross-sectional survey data. (Bansal et al., 2004). Fullerton (2003) in a longitudinal,experimental design found a significant interaction between affective and continuancecommitment on both switching intentions and advocacy intentions. The findings in thecurrent study demonstrate that continuance commitment may depress the positiveeffects of affective commitment to the service provider. While evidence supporting theexistence of an affective commitment-continuance commitment interaction is not entirelyconclusive, there is a good basis for the conclusion that continuance commitmentundermines the positive effect of affective commitment because significant interactionswere found in two of three service settings examined in this study.

Overall, these findings lend considerable support to the view that commitment iscentral to the development of marketing relationships (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Inparticular, the study supports the position that affective commitment is key to thedevelopment and maintenance of effective marketing relationships. Marketing managersand CRM specialists must look for ways to build identification, attachment and trust in

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their marketing efforts. It is difficult for marketers to manufacture these conditions out ofthin air because they take time to develop and can only be developed if the organizationseeks to deliver value to its customers through its relationship management efforts(Rigby et al., 2002). For example, many retail grocery chains are devoting considerableresources to the development of the retail brand because they have recognized that thepsychological connection that the customer has with the brand is a significant driver oftheir patronage intentions, perhaps even a stronger driver than their evaluations of thestore’s prices, service and selection (Fullerton, 2005).

On the other hand, these findings may also explain the dissolution of relationshipsrooted in continuance commitment once the conditions that create the state ofcontinuance commitment are removed. Customers who feel bound to their partnersmay respond to these feelings with a desire for exit. In addition, these findings alsosuggest that continuance commitment undermines the positive role of affectivecommitment. While it may seem absurd to develop and manage a relationshipprimarily on continuance commitment, many organizations use the mechanisms thatgive rise to the psychological state of continuance commitment in creatingrelationships. Cellular telephone service providers, membership club programmesand government services are three prime examples of relationship management effortswhere continuance commitment is frequently at the core. These organizations mayexperience some benefits of initial customer retention, but only so long as theconditions that create continuance commitment are in force. At the same time,marketers must recognize that their relationship management efforts could build bothaffective and continuance commitment. For example, financial service providers intheir efforts to deliver services uniquely suited to attractive customers and enhanceaffective commitment may also be creating switching costs that enhance continuancecommitment. In this event, the relationship may not be as strong as the marketerthinks because of the affective commitment-continuance commitment interaction.

The implication of these findings is that commitment can both enhance and erodemarketing relationships. Affective commitment is the foundation on whichrelationships are built. Continuance commitment erodes relationships in three keyways. First, it has either a weak effect on customer retention, or quite possibly adetrimental effect on customer retention in some situations. Second, it has a negativeeffect on advocacy and customer word of mouth behaviour which is being recognizedas an increasingly important side-effect of effective relationships (Reichheld, 2003).Third, due to its interactive effect, it erodes the affective commitment based foundationof marketing relationships. Thus, the extent to which commitment is central to thedevelopment of marketing relationships, depends entirely upon the component ofcommitment on which the relationship is being built in the relationship. Morecommitment is not necessarily better in a marketing relationship. In the absence of aconcerted effort to develop affective commitment and minimize conditions which giverise to continuance commitment through its relationship management efforts,organizations will find that their efforts will be minimally effective at best and entirelyineffectual at worst.

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