Empirical Research On The Influence Of Customer Participation On Customer Satisfaction And Commitment

The simultaneity of production and consumption process of services is the key todistinguish the service from goods, in which customer participation behavior plays amajor role. Mounts of studies have shown that the outcomes of customer participationin service production and delivery process are not only reflected on the companyperformance, but also in the perception of service quality and customersatisfactionwith the company.So it is of great significance to conduct academicresearch on how customer participation behavior comes and its effects in the serviceindustry.This paper reviews the relevant literature and development of the five mainvariables at home and abroad,i.e.CP (Customer Participation),PSC (Perceived Supportfor Customers),CSPP (Customer Satisfaction with Their ParticipationPerformance),CS (Customer Satisfaction) andCC (Customer Commitment). Under theguidance of social exchange theory, social identity theory, attribution theory andequity theory, the paper establishesa theoretical framework which views CP as thecore variable, PSC as the antecedent variable, CS and CCas outcome variables of theconceptual model.Applying a SEM-approach and SPSS and LISREL software, thepaper empirically tests the model in the travel agency context, trying to explore thestructural dimension of customer participationunder the background of travel agencyand analyzing the mechanism of actions between the five variables.As is found inempirical study,PSC has positive effect on CP; the degree of CP partially mediates therelationship between PSC and CS as well as CC; CP positively affects CS and CC, butsignificant negative moderating effect is found for the relationship between CP andCS as well as CC. Finally, discussions and implications for the empirical study resultsof customer participation can be derived.