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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Three Essays On Contingent Valuation, Samuel Zapata Raudales Aug 2012

Three Essays On Contingent Valuation, Samuel Zapata Raudales

All Dissertations

Contingent valuation (CV), a survey-based method, is widely used by researchers and government agencies to assess the value of those goods or services whose market price is not well defined. This dissertation comprises three essays analyzing and extending the theoretical foundations, estimation methods and empirical applications of the CV method. The first and second essay focuses on producers' willingness to pay for novel inputs or technologies. The first essay analyzes the theoretical underpinnings of producer WTP for new inputs. In addition to conceptualizing the producer WTP function, I derived its comparative statics and show how these properties can be used …


An Exploration Of Engagement: A Customer Perspective, Laura M. Flynn Jun 2012

An Exploration Of Engagement: A Customer Perspective, Laura M. Flynn

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

This study examines a proposed framework for measuring customer engagement with support from employee engagement literature. Archival data was utilized to evaluate these relationships which included 4.530 participants that were customers of a business-to-business (B2B) organization and utilized the business' website. A similar factor structure resulted for the measurement of customer engagement. Structural equation modeling showed partial support for the hypothesized predictors of engagement (i.e. commitment, brand image, preference and decision making) because the relationship between satisfaction and engagement was not significant. The hypothesized outcome variables of engagement were also partially supported with loyalty, sales, average order value, and website …


Switching Costs And Loyalty: Understanding How Trust Moderates Online Consumers’ Ties To Merchants, Michelle Carter, Richard Klein, Jason B. Thatcher, Ryan Wright May 2012

Switching Costs And Loyalty: Understanding How Trust Moderates Online Consumers’ Ties To Merchants, Michelle Carter, Richard Klein, Jason B. Thatcher, Ryan Wright

Jason Bennett Thatcher

Information technology has transformed how travelers interact with travel service providers. Due to fierce competition in the online air travel industry, e-ticketing services have focused attention on fostering customer loyalty. This is an important strategy because, in general, initial transactions with new customers are less profitable than transactions with existing customers. Drawing on research on customer loyalty, switching costs, and trust, this study develops, and proposes an empirical test, for a model incorporating trust as a moderator of the relationship between switching costs and online customer loyalty. We propose that in the presence of high customer trust, e-businesses should have …