| dc.description.abstract | The growth of application service providers has been phenomenal in IT service industry worldwide. Nevertheless, customers can easily switch from one supplier to another based on the comparison between cost and benefit if their service is comprised with modularized and standard components. Application service providers have to try their best to enhance the loyalty of existing customers, because it costs more to attract a new customer than to maintain existing customers. This phenomenon is especially remarkable in the area of logistics information service, the most mature ASPs field in Taiwan. It has been an imperative strategy for logistics information service providers to understand how to build customer loyalty in order to create value for themselves and for customers. Other suppliers can easily imitate the competitive edge derived from price and cost factors in a highly competitive environment. Starting from the perspective of investment model and relationship management, there are two important factors, psychological consideration and economical consideration to be discussed in this study in order to investigate the determinants of loyalty formation in the area of logistics information service. Psychological considerations include service quality, trust and affective commitment. Economical considerations are mainly derived from switching barriers. Moreover, the comparative importance of psychological considerations and economical considerations are further explored based on the perspectives of relational exchange theory and relationship development process.
Empirical result from a questionnaire survey leads to several findings. First, both psychological and economical factors influence customer loyalty to an ASP simultaneously. Service and communication quality facilitate trust building, in turn promote affective commitment to the current relationship. Increasing investment size and reducing attractiveness of alternatives also build up switching barriers. High switching barriers induce customers’ continuous commitment. Initial analysis of main effect does not support the association between continuous commitment and loyalty. However, further analysis reveals that the association between continuous commitment and loyalty is moderated by relationship strength. Second, among all proposed antecedents, service quality is the most important determinant to the degree of loyalty and trust. Promoting customer service quality is necessary for pursuing long-term relationships. Third, the indirect influence of trust on loyalty through affective commitment is greater than of switching barrier on loyalty through continuous commitment. Besides, the effect of affective commitment is greater than of continuous commitment in this study. The result shows that it will be better to pay attention to psychological consideration in a B2B relationship. Finally, relationship strength moderates the association among continuous commitment, affective commitment and loyalty. In the case of low relationship strength, continuous commitment primarily contributes to loyalty, while affective commitment is the major contributor in the case of high relationship strength. If ASPs can propose distinct manner based on the variation of relationship strength, the consequence of customer retention will be better and effective. | en_US |