| Long term marketing relationships are prevalent, economically important, and relatively neglected by marketing theory. Retaining customers is different from attracting customers, and developing relationships often require substantial resouces by both dyad members. This dissertation focuses on relationship commitment, defined as the desire to maintain a relationship with another person. It is argued that relationship commitment is more important than satisfaction in predicting and explaining marketplace behavior where long term relationships exist. Hence, understanding commitment is important to both marketing scholars and practitioners interested in services marketing, particularly professional services, industrial marketing, and channels of distribution.;Based on a social exchange perspective, and literature from marketing and other behavioral sciences, a model was developed to account for commitment in marketing relationships. The Relationship Commitment Model hypothesizes that relationship commitment is a positive function of relationship satisfaction, switching costs, and the degree of uncertainty associated with alternatives to the relationship, and is a negative function of the benefits of switching and the uncertainty associated with the current relationship. Further, the impact of uncertainty associated with leaving is hypothesized to be moderated by the degree of satisfaction with the relationship: dissatisfied individuals are hypothesized to be less risk averse. Finally, the model proposes that relationship satisfaction is a function of the discrepancy between what people feel they are (or will be) receiving and what they feel they should be receiving. Other models suggest that investment levels, and equity, directly affect relationship commitment. Within the dissertation, it was hypothesized that equity directly affects relationship satisfaction, and that switching costs, rather than investment levels, affect commitment.;Employing regression analysis and causal modeling, the models were tested using survey data regarding the commitment of Arizona dentists on their current accountant. A data driven search for another model was also undertaken.;The study results suggest that commitment in this relationship is solely a function of relationship satisfaction, and relationship satisfaction is a function of equity, uncertainty associated with outcomes from the current relationship, and the difference between what one is receiving and what one feels is appropriate. |
