Although the concept of commitment has been examined in various consumer services contexts, an understanding of consumer commitment theory is still incomplete. First, the role of commitment as a stabilizing psychological force that can direct one's behavior has not been sufficiently acknowledged. As a result, the investigation of behavioral implications of commitment has been exclusively limited to consumers' switching or referral intentions (e.g., Bansal et al. 2004; Barksdale, Johnson, and Suh 1997; Verhoef et al. 2002). Second, the unique psychological mechanisms that can foster various dimensions of consumer commitment have not been explored. Consequently, the widely examined antecedents of consumer commitment are limited to satisfaction, trust, and switching cost (e.g., Bansal et al. 2004; Brown et al. 2005; Jones et al. 2007). Finally, with a few exceptions (e.g., Barksdale et al. 1997), the most frequently studied service encounters in commitment research are characterized by low consumer participation. This is in contrast to the employee-organization context where the commitment construct was originated as employees usually play an active role in organizations' production. Our study intends to address these limitations through reconceptualizing consumer commitment, developing a theoretical model of consumer commitment, and testing the model in a complex and extended service encounter.
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