Research On Influencing Mechanism Of Electronic Service Quality On Customer Engagement In Social Commerce

2011-2012Criteria for Performance Excellence: Malcolm Baldrige National QualityAward argued that an organization should listen to the voice of its customers with socialmedia and then achieve customer engagement. The emerging trend of the convergence ofe-commerce and web2.0has driven e-commerce transformed into social commerce rapidly.Under this circumstance, it is important for an organization to understand how a customercould become an engaged one from the initial encounter. In order to get the answer, threeissues should be made clear. Firstly, an organization should know how its customersevaluate the electronic service quality of the organization. Secondly, the managers shouldknow what customer engagement is. Thirdly, the managers should know how electronicservice quality affects customer engagement and find the mediating variables andmoderating variables if they exist.The theories and models of electronic service quality have been in developmentcontinuously. The existing measurement models, such as E-S-QUAL and WebQual, whichhave been developed in the context of B2C electronic commerce, could not reflect thecharacteristics of social commerce. And the application of them has shown that theirdimensional structure appears to be very unstable. With the development of socialcommerce, it is necessary to study the measurement model of electronic service quality inthis context. Meanwhile, the current researches of customer engagement show that thereexist a lot of uncharted territories to be explored in the field of customer engagement,which include the measurement of customer engagement, the relationship of customerengagement to repurchase and spread of word of mouth, the effects of service trait (quality)and user interaction on the state of engagement and purchasing, etc. Then it is inevitablethat making clear the conceptual and operational definition of customer engagement andstudying the mechanism of customer engagement. So, according to the above researchtrends, the paper focuses on the following three aspects.Firstly, the electronic service quality measurement model of social commerce isdeveloped. According to the conventional guidelines for scale development, referring tothe existing measurement models of electronic service quality and considering thetechnical characteristics of web2.0,178initial items of electronic service quality of socialcommerce were generated with methods of focus group and expert interview. Throughpretest, the repeated and subordinate items were removed and57items retained, which can be divided into eight classes, i.e. ease of use, system availability, aesthetic design,privacy/security, fulfillment, responsiveness, personalized recommendation and socialinteraction. After exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, theelectronic service quality measurement model of social commerce was proposed, whichincludes17items and five dimensions, i.e. social interaction, efficiency&reliability,privacy&security, aesthetic design and personalized recommendation. The reliability,validity and goodness-of-fit of the model met the proposed requirements, which make itavailable for evaluating the electronic service quality of social commerce.Secondly, the dimensions and measurement methods of customer engagement areexplored. With reviewing the evolvement of the conceptual and operational definition ofcustomer involvement, customer participation and customer engagement and contrastingthe antecedents and consequences of each concept, the paper differentiated customerengagement from the other two concepts. The relationship of customer engagement andcustomer loyalty was also analyzed. Then with comparing the unidimensional view ofcustomer engagement with its multidimensional view, and aiming at the problem that theconceptual and operational definitions are inconsistent, and the problem that it’s hard todistinguish the behavioral outcomes from the behavioral dimension of customerengagement, the conceptual framework of customer engagement in social commerce basedon the process view was proposed, which includes attitudinal engagement and behavioralengagement. And attitudinal engagement influences behavioral engagement. Theirdefinitions were also proposed and their scales were tested with confirmatory factoranalysis.Thirdly, the model of mechanism, through which electronic service quality of socialcommerce influences customer engagement, is developed. The former is a basic factor thataffects customer’s behavior and the latter is a goal of customer relationship for enterprise.However, the mechanism between these two factors has not been tested empirically. Basedon technology acceptance model, customer satisfaction index model and customer valuemodel, a research model was proposed, which includes nine latent variables, i.e. electronicservice quality, product quality, utilitarian value, hedonic value, social value, socialsupport, attitude engagement, continuing patronage and commercial social activity.Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were performed to test thereliability, validity, goodness-of-fit and the proposed hypotheses, using a sample of422website users of the main social commerce companies in China. The mediating effects ofattitudinal engagement, product quality, utilitarian value, hedonic value, social value andsocial support were tested with structural equation modeling. And the moderating effects of social value and social support were tested with hierarchical multiple regression andstructural equation modeling.Empirical analysis results show that,(1) Electronic service quality is a signal ofproduct quality and product quality has positive effect on utilitarian value. However,product quality does not mediate the relationship between electronic service quality andutilitarian value.(2) Electronic service quality is positively related to utilitarian value,hedonic value, social value and social support. Further, utilitarian value and hedonic valuehave direct effect on attitude engagement but do not have direct effect on commercialsocial activity. And social value and social support do not have direct effect on attitudeengagement and continuing patronage but have direct effect on commercial social activity.(3) Electronic service quality has total effect on customer engagement (attitudinalengagement, continuing patronage and commercial social activity) significantly, whereasthe relationship is fully mediated by other variables. The relationship between electronicservice quality and attitude engagement is fully mediated by utilitarian value and hedonicvalue, and the ratio of the importance of utilitarian value to that of hedonic value is about2:1. The relationship between electronic service quality and commercial social activity ismediated by social value and social support, and the ratio of the importance of social valueto that of social support is about1:3.(4) Social support does not moderate the effect ofelectronic service quality on attitudinal engagement. Also, it can only mediate but cannotmoderate the relationship between electronic service quality and commercial social activity.And social value negatively moderates the effect of social support on commercial socialactivity.These results could give social commerce companies enlightenment aboutmanagement, which is as follows:(1) Social commerce company should improve itsservice quality comprehensively and provide its customers a convenient, safe, reliable,enjoyable, interactive and low cost channel to purchase what they need.(2) Utilitarianvalue is the principal factor that affects attitudinal engagement and repurchase, so acompany should positively adopt and study new technologies, such as augmented realitytechnique, wearable device technology and intelligent search technology, to promoteutilitarian value.(3) When a company wants to promote the spread of word of mouth, itshould adopt measures such as improving the product review subsystem and establishingusers’ reputation mechanism.(4) Social commerce company should plan and design thefunction of shopping and interacting systemically, and should allocate its resourcesrationally among improving utilitarian value, hedonic value, social value and socialsupport. The research conducted in this paper, which has explored the development andapplication of the theory of quality management and customer relationship management inthe context of social commerce, shows innovativeness in the following three aspects.Firstly, the electronic service quality measurement model of social commercedeveloped in this paper has high reliability and validity. And compared with theconventional measurement model of electronic service quality, this model has two newdimensions, i.e. social interaction and personalized recommendation, which could betterreflect the social characteristics of e-commerce. And the model developed the theory ofelectronic service quality. Not only can it be applied to test causal relationships betweenvariables in management, but also it can be used as an evaluation index system to assessthe electronic service quality of social commerce companies. The assessment results couldhelp enterprises find shortcomings and improve their service quality.Secondly, viewing customer engagement as a process, the paper proposed theconceptual framework of customer engagement, which includes attitudinal engagementand behavioral engagement, and then developed their scales. It could improve theconsistency of the conceptual and operational definitions of customer engagement intheory. And in practice, it could facilitate the application of customer engagement. Becausethe measurement of customer satisfaction has been criticized by people, enterprises in theera of web2.0require a new measurement tool, which could reflect the customerrelationship more comprehensively and predict customer behavior more precisely. A clear,manageable and perspicuous customer engagement measurement tool will meet the need ofenterprises.Thirdly, the model of mechanism, through which customer engagement can beachieved, combined the study on utilitarian value and hedonic value in the context ofshopping and the study on social value in the context of social network sites and thenrevealed the paths from electronic service quality of social commerce to customerengagement. The mediating effects of utilitarian value, hedonic value, social value andsocial support were tested and their relative size was also achieved. And the moderatingeffects of social value and social support were tested too. The model not only made atheoretical contribution to theories of customer engagement and quality management, butalso could help companies identify and distinguish priority targets and measures, and thenformulate reasonable operation strategies.