| As a result of increasing competition a paradigm shift in business philosophy has emerged. Marketing focus has recently shifted from being transaction-oriented to addressing long-term relationship strategies (Gonroos, 1997). An increased awareness of the great impact of customer retention on profit and the realization that the costs of maintaining customers is significantly less than the cost of attracting new ones (Fornell and Wernerfelt, 1987; Reichheld and Sasser, 1990) prompted the need to study constructs examining customers' biased brand choices. One construct that addresses biased brand choices is loyalty. This construct has been the focus of extensive research in the past, and recently some authors have argued that loyalty is more important in the business field than ever before (1999). Despite the merit of previous efforts to provide a theoretical understanding of the loyalty construct, the domain of loyalty has demonstrated a slow evolution. As a consequence, it has become necessary to attempt to re-examine the development of loyalty under an alternative theoretical perspective.; The purpose was to investigate the utility of using Resource Theory (Foa and Foa, 1974) to examine the notion of loyalty in the context of leisure services. It was hypothesized that when customers and provider invest certain types of resources in each other, customers develop loyalty toward the provider. To test the proposed theoretical explanation of loyalty the relationships between customers' perceptions of investments made in them, their own investments in a provider and their loyalty to that provider were analyzed. Furthermore the influence of the investments of various types of resources made by customers and provider in various measures of customer loyalty (attitudes toward the provider, information search, word of mouth communications, repurchase intentions, resistance to counter-persuasion) was examined.; To test the study hypotheses, a sample consisting of 279 group leaders who purchased a rafting trip for their groups from an outfitter in the southeastern United States was used. The sample was obtained with a proportional stratified random sample procedure. Time in the season (Spring, Summer, and Fall) and river choice (Chattooga, Nantahala, Ocoee and Pigeon rivers) were the criteria used for creating 12 strata. The data were collected with a self-administered mail survey. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
