Encouraging Customer Participation by Leveraging Interdependence Structure and Relationship Commitments: Empirical Evidence from Chinese Industrial Firms

Mingfei Du ； Jing Zhang

《International Journal of Business and Information》 12卷4期 (2017/12) Pp. 433-477

https://doi.org/10.6702/ijbi.2017.12.4.4

摘要

The literature suggests that integrating customers into value creation can strengthen a company’s core competencies. It is still unclear, however, how inter-firm dependence structure impacts the customer’s willingness to participate. This paper explores the impacts of two dimensions of interdependence structure between seller and buyer (total interdependence and interdependence symmetry) on customer participation via the customer’s calculative and affective commitments. It also examines in industrial marketing contexts the moderating effects of environmental dynamism, process interdependence, and technological complexity in the customer commitments and participation link. The conceptual model and research hypotheses were tested using data collected from a survey of 376 business-to-business (B2B) firms. The research findings provide insightful managerial implications for B2B firms on to how to encourage customers to participate by properly leveraging interdependence structure and customers’ relationship commitments according to environmental and task-specific characteristics.

關鍵字

Customer participation ； interdependence structure ； relationship commitments ； industrial firms

參考文獻

Wicks, A.C.; Berman, S.L.; and Jones, T.M. (1999). The structure of optimal trust: Moral and strategic implications, Academy of Management Review 24, 99–116. DOI: 10.5465/AMR.1999.1580443

Wu, C.H.J. (2011). A re-examination of the antecedents and impact of customer participation in service, The Service Industries Journa, 31(6), 863-876. doi.org/10.1080/02642060902960768

Wu, W.C.; Ku, E.C.; and Liao, H. (2015). Intimate knowledge initiators: Bonding the suppliers and buyers in the online group-shopping environment, Internet Research 25(1), 13-39. doi.org/10.1108/IntR-12-2013-0270

Yi, Y., and Gong, T. (2013). Customer value co-creation behavior: Scale development and validation, Journal of Business Research 66(9), 1279-1284. doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.02.026

Yi, Y.; Nataraajan, R.; and Gong, T. (2011). Customer participation and citizenship behavioral influences on employee performance, satisfaction, commitment, and turnover intention, Journal of Business Research, 64(1), 87-95. doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.12.007