What Is Involuntary Commitment?

Customer commitment is another important concept behind customer marketing and customer loyalty in Western marketing theories on how to retain customers, and it has received increasing attention with the introduction of the relationship marketing paradigm. Dwyer et al. (1987) pointed out that commitment represents the highest stage of relationship establishment. Morgan and Hunt (1994) argue that successful relationship marketing requires relationship commitment and trust.

Customer commitment

Customer commitment is a relay of Western marketing theories on how to retain customers

To understand the nature of customer promises, you first need to understand the nature of its superordinate concept of commitment. Looking at the existing literature, there are "one consensus and two differences" in the academic community about the nature of commitment. "One consensus" is that the core of commitment is maintaining relationships or sustaining actions. The "two differences" are: Is the commitment to maintain the relationship or the psychological state of the action, or the actual behavior of the relationship or the action? Is the commitment voluntary or involuntary? ^[1]

In the field of organizational behavior, scholars' understanding of the dimension of commitment has undergone a transformation from a single dimension to a multidimensional conceptualization. Early researchers generally regarded commitment as a one-dimensional concept, but in later organizational commitment studies, researchers more often regarded commitment as a multidimensional concept. Allen and Meyer (1990) pointed out that the driving force of commitment includes emotional attachment, perceived cost, and sense of obligation. Based on this, the organizational commitment should include emotional, continuous, and normative commitments. Three dimensions, and based on this, put forward the perspective of the ternary structure of organizational commitment. The two researchers described the three dimensions of organizational commitment as follows: "Emotional commitment refers to the employee's psychological attachment, identification, and involvement in the organization. Continuous commitment refers to the commitment based on the cost of leaving the organization. Finally, normative Commitment refers to the sense of obligation of employees to stay in the organization. "They further explained that" employees with strong emotional commitments stay in the organization because they 'wantto' to do so; they have a strong ongoing commitment Of employees stay in the organization because they 'needto' do it; employees with strong normative commitments stay in the organization because they feel they should 'do' (oughtto). " Not only the logical analysis of the three-dimensional conceptualization of organizational commitment, but also the independence of the three dimensions.

Gonzalez and Guillen (2008) use Aristotle's theory to support the validity of the three-dimensional division of organizational commitment. According to Aristotle, the products that humans pursue in various relationships can be divided into useful products, pleasant products, and ethical products. Based on this, the two scholars believe that "the concept of three-dimensional human products in the human relationship described by Aristotle has a clear correspondence with the ternary conceptualization of modern organizational commitment." In the field of psychology, Adams and Jones (1997) Based on a comprehensive review of the literature on marriage commitments, a survey of 1,787 respondents found that marriage commitments have three main dimensions: attractive commitments based on loyalty, satisfaction, and love; personal commitment to maintaining marriage; and marriage An important social and religious institution's beliefs in ethical norms; binding commitments due to fears that the end of relationships will lead to social, financial, and emotional costs.

In the field of marketing, early customer commitment studies mostly used a single-dimensional conceptual perspective (eg, Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Garbarino and Johnson, 1999). In recent years, customer commitment research has shown a clear tendency to treat commitment as a multidimensional concept. For example, Harrison. Walker (2001) researched the relationship between customer commitment and service quality and positive word of mouth, divided customer commitment into emotional commitment and high abandonment commitment; Gilliland and Bello (2002) in the study of the relationship between distributors and manufacturers , The commitment is divided into computational commitment and loyalty commitment; in the customer service model of Raman (2000) consumer service model, customer commitment includes emotional commitment, objective commitment and moral commitment; Bansal et al. (2004) consumer service scenario Under the customer commitment model, customer commitment is divided into continuous commitment, emotional commitment and normative commitment. "

Among the many studies on customer commitment, the research by Bansal et al. (2004) is most consistent with the approach of Allen and Meyer (1990) in terms of dimensional division. They believe that in the consumer service scenario, the reason why customers want to maintain a long-term relationship with the seller may be because of a rational analysis of cost-benefit, that maintaining the current relationship in the current market environment can maximize their own economic benefits or minimize economic costs. (Cost-based commitments); it may be because the customer has formed trust or psychological identity with the company or the brand or the company's customer contacts, resulting in emotional attachment (desire-based commitments); it may be because it is considered that the termination of the relationship violates social relationship norms (based on Commitment of obligations). Through a questionnaire survey of 356 customers who received car repair services, they found that the three-dimensional model of customer commitment generally explained 29% of the variation in "conversion intent." Of the explained variation, "continuous commitment" accounted for 28%. "Emotional commitments" accounted for 17%, and "normative commitments" accounted for 41%. This shows that the three-dimensional conceptualization of organizational commitment is equally valid for customer commitment.

The above literature review shows that the three-dimensional conceptualization of commitments (cost-based commitments, desire-based commitments, and obligation-based commitments) is not only theoretically supported, but also empirically supported in the fields of organizational behavior and psychology. At the same time, empirical research in the field of marketing shows that the three-dimensional conceptualization of commitments is also effective for customer commitments. The three-dimensional conceptualization of customer commitments can not only fully reflect the extension of customer commitments, but also help to evaluate the three dimensions of customer behavior. Different effects.

Researchers explored the antecedent variables of customer commitment in B2B and B2C scenarios. Early research focused on B2B scenarios, and recent research has focused more on B2C scenarios. Basically, the research in the B2B scenario regards commitment as a whole concept. It examines the antecedent variables of customer commitment in general, without examining the influencing factors of each dimension separately. Similarly, the research on antecedents of customer commitment in the B2C scenario also basically adopts a package approach. The only one that explores the three dimensions of influencing factors is the study by Bansal et al. (2004). Although the research on the antecedents of customer commitment in the two scenarios basically adopts a package approach, the factors it explores clearly converge on three types of economic factors, emotional factors, and social norms, which corresponds to the three dimensions of customer commitment . In view of this, we have classified the influencing factors under the two commitment dimensions in the B2B and B2C scenarios (Table 1). Overall, the factors that influence customer commitment in the two scenarios are basically the same. ^[1]

Customer commitment refers to a psychological contract formed between a customer and a product or brand during the consumption of a product or brand. It can be explained from three dimensions:

The impact of customer commitment on customer loyalty can be described in the following three aspects: ^[2]

1. The impact of emotional commitment on customer loyalty

Customers have a high level of emotional commitment, that is, they have a strong affection for a brand product, and believe that it represents their own personality, values, lifestyle and even dreams, which will cause a strong willingness to buy or use the brand product repeatedly, As a result, actual consumer behaviors are generated. Therefore, the customer's emotional commitment has an impact on both psychological loyalty and behavioral loyalty, especially on psychological loyalty.

2. Impact of continuous commitment on customer loyalty

Continuous commitment is the psychological state that customers have to continuously consume a certain product or service because the comprehensive conversion cost is too high or they have high expectations of future revenue.

(1) If the customer's level of emotional commitment and normative commitment to the product is very low, and continuous purchase behavior is generated only because of continuous commitment, then this behavioral loyalty based on low psychological loyalty is very Fragile, customers will complain or even hostile, and once conditions permit, customers will not abandon the product without hesitation.

(2) And if the customer's emotional commitment and normative commitment to the product are at a good level, then increasing the level of continuous commitment will further consolidate and increase customer loyalty.

3. The impact of normative commitment on customer loyalty

The formation of normative commitments is relatively complicated. Relative affective commitments and continuous commitments are complex. The factors that affect customers include their personal growth environment, laws, social ethics and ethics, family and work environments, circle of friends, etc. Behavior has a normative impact.

Some of them are the influence of explicit norms, such as laws, ethics, and rules and regulations of formal organizations. For example, in South Korea, due to the strong nationalism of the entire society, most Korean consumers have obvious influence on their agricultural products, automobiles, etc. The preference level of customers is relatively high, which leads to a higher level of loyalty to domestic brand products.

Others are implicit normative influences, such as the influence of consumption habits and preferences of members of informal organizations such as families, social classes, and circle of friends on customers.

For example, a middle-to-high-level white-collar worker who works in a foreign company may be more likely to choose high-end daily necessities from foreign brands and be dismissive of domestic low-end brands due to the influence of his class, working environment and corporate culture.

Therefore, the normative commitment places more emphasis on the impact of customers' social and human environment and personal consumption environment on their consumer psychology and behavior.