The impacts of customer involvement on the relationship between relationship quality and performance
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
ISSN: 0885-8624
Article publication date: 16 October 2019
Issue publication date: 22 January 2020
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to determine whether relationship quality should be measured as a disaggregated or as a composite construct, and investigate the causal relationship between relationship quality and customer involvement. The authors also explore the role of customer involvement in relationship quality-performance linkage in B2B settings.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on 214 Chinese manufacturers and uses the structural equation model to examine this conceptual model and hypotheses.
Findings
As a reflective second-order construct, relationship quality not only has positive effects on performance but also positively affects customer involvement. More importantly, customer involvement partially mediates the relationship between relationship quality and performance.
Research limitations/implications
This study only focuses on customer relationship, but neglects the supplier relationship.
Practical implications
When assessing the relationship quality with customers, suppliers must consider trust, commitment and investment dimensions simultaneously. In addition, to increase performance, suppliers must involve customers who are trusted and invested in training and logistics facility and then cooperate with them in new product design.
Originality/value
These findings contribute to this understanding on the relationship quality in B2B settings and provide theoretical contributions and managerial insights for both academics and practitioners.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors truly thank the editor and the three anonymous referees, and greatly appreciate their help and suggestions. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71602153), the Humanity and Social Science Youth foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No. 18YJC630079), Shaanxi Soft Science Research Fund of China (No. 2019KRM039), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (No. JB180607) and the Youth Innovation Team of Shaanxi Universities.
Citation
Li, Y., Zhang, Y., Xu, J. and Feng, T. (2020), "The impacts of customer involvement on the relationship between relationship quality and performance", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 270-283. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-04-2018-0131
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited