Psychographic Determinants of E-Customer citizenship Behaviour an empirical study in the context of online consumers in india

Abstract

Purpose of the study: The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between the Perceived Value (PV) of the customer and E-Customer Citizenship Behaviour (E-CCB) in the online retailing context by proposing PV as primary determinant of E-CCB and Customer Trust (CT), Customer Satisfaction (CS), Customer Loyalty (CL) as secondary determinants of E-CCB. Perceived value is considered as a second-order construct with Hedonic value (HV) and Utilitarian Value (UV) dimensions. E-CCB is also considered as a second-order construct with Service Firm Facilitation (SFF), Recommendation (REC) and Helping behaviours (HB) dimensions. Also, the study examines the simple mediation and serial mediation effects of customer trust, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty on the perceived value and E-customer citizenship behaviour relationship. The interaction effects on the PV and E-CCB relationship has been analysed using demographic variables of the respondents. They include gender, age, the frequency of online shopping and online shopping experience. Also, the study evaluates the differences in the patterns of E-CCB dimensions - Recommendation (REC) and Helping behaviours (HB) of participants of the study by comparing the means of their gender, age, education level, the frequency of online shopping and online shopping experience. The methodology of the study: A survey was conducted across southern India (sample size n = 738) by administering a structured questionnaire to online customers in tier I and tier II cities of five states. They include Hyderabad, Warangal, Guntur, Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Coimbatore, Bangalore, Mysore, Trivandrum, and Kochi. The study adopted purposive sampling methods to collect the data. The study explored the attributes of value, trust, satisfaction, loyalty and customer citizenship behaviour of online consumers in India by semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and literature review. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, viii structural equation modelling, mediation analysis, multi-group analysis, independent sample t-test and ANOVA were performed for the data analysis through SPSS 21.0, AMOS 21.0, Hayes Process Macro v.2.16.3. Findings of the study: The study revealed that PV, CT, CS, CL determines E-CCB besides their inter-relationships. Simple mediation through one mediator and serial mediation with multiple mediators (CT&CS, CT&CL, CS&CL) affect the relationship between PV and E-CCB with a variance of about 56%. Further, the relationship between PV and E-CCB is moderated by the gender, age, online shopping frequency, and online shopping experience. Finally, SFF, REC, HB do not significantly differ in terms of gender, age, education level, the frequency of online shopping and online shopping experience. Implications: The study which captures the viewpoint of online customers’ citizenship behaviours. The citizenship behaviours play a significant role in getting the revenues primarily in the virtual online retailing context where the direct communications between service providers and customers are replaced by technology. Hence, the clear insight into the factors which motivate customers to perform citizenship behaviours is necessary. E-retailers must focus on providing value-enhancing products and services to their customers to develop trust and satisfaction among them. This process leads to the retention of customers through loyalty and positive citizenship behaviours. Therefore, this study facilitates online retailers to formulate customer retention strategies in India. Keywords: Perceived value, E-Customer citizenship behaviour, customer trust, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty