The basic premise of this dissertation is that other customers, as part of the service environments, have direct or indirect influences on target customer¡¦s interpersonal attraction and then affect overall service experience. These effects received increasing attention in recent service marketing literature. However, most of studies dedicated their attention to the effect of other customers¡¦ behaviors; thus, an obvious limitation of existing literature is the neglect of other customers¡¦ characteristics. This research gap became the major research motivation of this dissertation. Moreover, this dissertation introduced an important but rarely discussed psychological response ¡V target customer¡¦s interpersonal attraction.
Based on relevant literature, the author proposed a overall framework which considered the effects of other customers¡¦ behaviors, observable similarity, and physical appearance on target customer¡¦s interpersonal attraction evaluation. Moreover, the author also explored the relationship between target customer¡¦s interpersonal attraction evaluation and his/her overall satisfaction, purchase intention, and anxiety perception. Four scenario-based experiments were conducted to verify proposed hypotheses.
In Experiment 1, the effects of other customers¡¦ appropriate / inappropriate behaviors and observable similarity were examined. The results indicated significant main effects and an interaction effect. Other customers¡¦ observable similarity had an alleviating effect on interpersonal attraction. Experiment 2 tested the relationships between other customers¡¦ behaviors, physical appearance, and interpersonal attraction. Results were similar to findings of Experiment 1. Other customer¡¦s physical appearance had an alleviating effect. A supplementary survey reported that people tend to justify physically-attractive persons¡¦ inappropriate behaviors. Experiment 3 concerned about the negative effects of physical appearance on interpersonal attraction by manipulating other customers¡¦ appraisals toward target customer¡¦s product choice. The last experiment empirically verified the stabilizing effect proposed by marketing scholars. The author found that other customers¡¦ anxiety-reducing behaviors could lower target customer¡¦s perceived anxiety and produce higher interpersonal attraction. In all four experiments, target customers¡¦; interpersonal attraction had positive correlation with overall satisfaction, purchase intention, or anxiety perception. Interpersonal attraction at least partially mediated manipulated factors¡¦ effects on satisfaction.
This dissertation¡¦s last chapter provided summary of experiment findings, theoretical and managerial implications, research limitations, and future research directions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0612107-224048 |
| Date | 12 June 2007 |
| Creators | Yang, Chun-Ming |
| Contributors | Jun-Ying Huang, Jacob Y.H. Jou, Chien-Huang Lin, Cheng-Nan Chen, Ming-Rea Kao |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0612107-224048 |
| Rights | not_available, Copyright information available at source archive |
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