Modeling Customer Loyalty from an Integrative Perspective of Self-Determination Theory and Expectation-Confirmation Theory

Abstract

This research conceptualizes and tests an integrative model of customer loyalty by linking two important theories: expectation-confirmation theory and self-determination theory. The model is examined using data obtained from 207 part-time students who have encountered the service of a skincare and beauty salon in Taiwan. These students work as full-time professionals in a variety of industries during the daytime and are financially independent for their daily consumption. The empirical results of this study indicate that loyalty is positively influenced by both intrinsic regulation and identified regulation, while introjected regulation and external regulation are insignificantly related to loyalty. Affected positively by service expectation and service confirmation, satisfaction has positive influences on all four dimensions of self-determined motivation-namely, intrinsic regulation, identified regulation, introjected regulation, and external regulation. The findings of this study show that the proposed model helps to learn about loyalty formation and its mediating mechanism in service contexts. Intrinsic regulation and identified regulation may be applied as two potential checkpoints for management to learn the actual status of customer loyalty based on a constant service quality offered by the service provider. This study is one of the earliest to integrate expectation-confirmation theory and self-determination theory to explore loyalty. Besides, this study transplants the traditional application of self-determination theory from educational service to commercial service in general so that efficient strategies can be made for boosting loyalty.