The Determinants of Relationship Commitment on Business-to-Consumer Group Transactions－the case of the insurance industry

• Main Authors: Zein-Yuh Chang, 張堅裕
• Other Authors: Perng-Fei Huang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/84373096489165183033

碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 行銷與流通管理所 === 91 === Since relationship marketing was proposed by Berry in 1983, it has received common interest by both academicians and practitioners in recent years. However, the past studies mostly concentrate on either business-to-business（B to B）or business-to-consumer（B to C）relationship marketing, research on relationship marketing in business-to-consumer group（B to G）is relatively less. In view of the fast development of group purchases these years, it is quite valuable to study this field. Based on the above gap, this study includes three major research objectives as follows： （1）To find out the determinants of relationship commitment on the part of group life-insurance consumers. （2）To explore the correlation between these determinants and relationship commitment. （3）To examine the relative influences of the determinants of relationship commitment. This study started with a critical literature review, and came up with eight key relationship commitment determinants－relationship benefits, satisfaction, fairness, trust, relative performance, relationship/transaction specific investments, availability of alternatives, and communication. In addition, we also examine the relationships between these determinants and commitment. This study obtained 389 effective questionnaires from the customers of the group life-insurance department of the Cathay-life insurance company. The study employed correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis to analyze the data and to test its eight hypotheses. The findings fully support all those hypothese,revealing that all the determinants have salient influences, either positive or negative, on relationship commitment. These results are consistent with the findings of most former studies on both B to B and B to C relationship marketing. One interesting finding is that there is a difference on relationship commitment determinants between the customers who never and ever involved in planning or decision making for group insurance buying. The most important commitment determinants of the two groups are satisfaction and trust respectively. In the end, our study discussed marketing implications of the findings, provided some suggestions to both scholars and practitioners, and indicated several limitations of the study and a few directions for future research. Though this study is simply exploratory in nature, it will have some contributions on the application of relationship marketing concepts to the field of group life insurance. For relationship marketing researchers, the study could provide initial support for future research on this field（B to G）. For practitioners, it may also provide valuable insight and directions for enhancing the commitment of the customers.