Research On The Influence Of Country-of-Origin Image On Customer Loyalty In Service Industry

In recent years,with the rapid development of the service industry,it plays an increasingly important role in the industrial structure of countries.While developing in their own countries,the service enterprises are also expanding abroad.However,in this process,"nationality" of services has become a factor that cannot be ignored.It is not only related to the success of the enterprises' overseas market entry,but also related to the long-term profitability in the overseas market.How to make the best use of the advantages brought by country-of-origin effect and minimize its negative impacts has become a common concern of enterprises and scholars.Different from traditional industries,service industry has unique characteristics like interactivity and invisibility making the effect of service source country more important and complex when customers face services from other countries.Therefore,it is necessary to study separately the country-of-origin effect in service industry.However,currently,the research on the country-of-origin effect in service,especially those emphasizing characteristics of service industry,is still limitedFor the service industry,building a good relationship with customers can help reduce the uncertainty and increase the dependence of customers on the enterprise,so as to improve the profitability of the enterprise and contribute to its further overseas expansion.How to establish the relationship with customers and improve the relationship quality is particularly important.To further ensure the long-term profitability of enterprises,it is a wise choice for service enterprises to cultivate customer loyalty which enables them to earn stable profits at low cost.Therefore,it is worth studying how the country-of-origin effect affects customer loyalty,and how the relationship quality and customer perceived value play an intermediary role in it.In addition,previous researches show that the cultural similarity between the country-of-origin of service and the customer's home country can moderate the country-of-origin effect.High cultural similarity will increase customers' sense of identity,reduce customers' worries about service,and thus reduce country-of-origin effect,which will otherwise be strengthened.This will provide reference for service enterprises to enter overseas markets,so this study introduces the moderator of perceived cultural distance.This research reviewed the previous researches on country-of-origin effect,customer perceived value,relationship quality,customer loyalty and perceived cultural distance,and then built a model of country-of-origin effect on customer loyalty against the background of bank service and generated assumptions.Then questionnaire was distributed to collect data which was processed with SPSS and AMOS,basing on which the model was modified and hypotheses were tested.Through the empirical study of banking services,this research draws the following conclusions:firstly,country-of-origin image has a positive impact on all dimensions of customer perceived value,and on two dimensions of relationship quality(satisfaction and trust);secondly,all dimensions of customer perceived value have positive impacts on satisfaction;thirdly,three dimensions of customer perceived value(except economic value)have positive impacts on trust;fourthly,all four dimensions of customer perceived value have positive impacts on commitment;fifthly,all four dimensions of customer perceived value have positive impacts on customer loyalty;sixthly,three dimensions of relationship quality have positive impacts on customer loyalty;seventhly,one dimension of perceived cultural distance(external distance)has positive impacts on the relationship between country-of-origin image and three dimensions of customer perceived value(excluding social value).It also has positive impacts on the relationship between country-of-origin image and two dimensions of relationship quality;eighthly,the other dimension of perceived cultural distance(Internal distance)has positive moderating effect on the relationship between country-of-origin image and four dimensions of customer perceived value.No significant moderating effect has been found on the relationship between country-of-origin image and relationship quality.The contribution of this study lay in establishing the model of service country-of-origin effect on customer loyalty and clarifying the impact of each dimension of the relationship quality which reflects the characteristics of country-of-origin in service and its influence on customer loyalty.This not only contributed to the existing country-of-origin research,but also provided guidance and reference to the overseas operating of service industry,especially that of the banking industry.The innovation of this study lay in that the whole mechanism of how country-of-origin effect influenced customer loyalty was established,which strengthened the practical guidance of the research results;this paper also introduced the variable of relationship quality,which highlighted the characteristics of service,and makes a relatively comprehensive analysis on it.Finally,based on the conclusion of the study,the paper put forward practical suggestions for the overseas operation of the banking industry,and clarified the limitations of this study and the possibility of future research.