IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i7p2674-d338300.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perceived Sustainability and Customer Engagement in the Online Shopping Environment: The Rational and Emotional Perspectives

Author

Listed:
  • Xiao Chen

    (School of Management, Shandong University, No. 27, Shanda South Road, Jinan 250100, China)

  • Xiaojing Sun

    (School of Management, Shandong University, No. 27, Shanda South Road, Jinan 250100, China)

  • Dongwei Yan

    (School of Management, Shandong University, No. 27, Shanda South Road, Jinan 250100, China)

  • Decheng Wen

    (School of Management, Shandong University, No. 27, Shanda South Road, Jinan 250100, China)

Abstract

As increasing numbers of customers pay attention to product and service sustainability when shopping online, more and more firms in the online market engage in promoting perceived sustainability to establish close customer relationships. Prior studies implied the effects of perceived sustainability on transactional customer relationships, however, the role of perceived sustainability in influencing nontransactional customer relationships has received little attention. Drawing on existing conceptual models, this study aimed at exploring the effects of perceived sustainability on rational and emotional customer engagement (CE) in the online shopping environment. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey in China. Using the partial least squares (PLS) approach-based structural equation modeling (SEM) method, the authors found that perceived sustainability positively affects the two CE orientations through influencing short- and long-term transactional attitudes (satisfaction and commitment). A strong interrelationship between rational and emotional CE was also found. This is the first study presenting empirical evidence of the effects of perceived sustainability on nontransactional customer relationships from the rational and emotional perspectives. It also provides critical implications for online sellers in designing engagement programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiao Chen & Xiaojing Sun & Dongwei Yan & Decheng Wen, 2020. "Perceived Sustainability and Customer Engagement in the Online Shopping Environment: The Rational and Emotional Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-16, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:7:p:2674-:d:338300
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/2674/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/2674/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thakur, Rakhi, 2018. "Customer engagement and online reviews," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 48-59.
    2. Armstrong, J. Scott & Overton, Terry S., 1977. "Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Surveys," MPRA Paper 81694, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Won-Moo Hur & Hyun Kim & Hanna Kim, 2013. "Investigation of the relationship between service values and loyalty behaviors under high commitment," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 7(1), pages 103-119, March.
    4. Prentice, Catherine & Han, Xiao Yun & Hua, Lian-Lian & Hu, Lin, 2019. "The influence of identity-driven customer engagement on purchase intention," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 339-347.
    5. John Hulland, 1999. "Use of partial least squares (PLS) in strategic management research: a review of four recent studies," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 195-204, February.
    6. Thakur, Rakhi, 2016. "Understanding Customer Engagement and Loyalty: A Case of Mobile Devices for Shopping," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 151-163.
    7. Harrigan, Paul & Evers, Uwana & Miles, Morgan P. & Daly, Tim, 2018. "Customer engagement and the relationship between involvement, engagement, self-brand connection and brand usage intent," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 388-396.
    8. Baldus, Brian J. & Voorhees, Clay & Calantone, Roger, 2015. "Online brand community engagement: Scale development and validation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 978-985.
    9. Estelle van Tonder & Daniël Johannes Petzer, 2018. "The interrelationships between relationship marketing constructs and customer engagement dimensions," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(13-14), pages 948-973, October.
    10. Juran Kim & Charles R. Taylor & Kyung Hoon Kim & Ki Hoon Lee, 2015. "Measures of perceived sustainability," Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 182-193, March.
    11. Bulent Menguc & Seigyoung Auh & Lucie Ozanne, 2010. "The Interactive Effect of Internal and External Factors on a Proactive Environmental Strategy and its Influence on a Firm's Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 94(2), pages 279-298, June.
    12. Hollebeek, Linda D. & Glynn, Mark S. & Brodie, Roderick J., 2014. "Consumer Brand Engagement in Social Media: Conceptualization, Scale Development and Validation," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 149-165.
    13. Roy, Sanjit Kumar & Shekhar, Vaibhav & Lassar, Walfried M. & Chen, Tom, 2018. "Customer engagement behaviors: The role of service convenience, fairness and quality," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 293-304.
    14. van Doorn, Jenny & Verhoef, Peter C., 2011. "Willingness to pay for organic products: Differences between virtue and vice foods," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 167-180.
    15. Chong-Wen Chen, 2018. "Guidance on the Conceptual Design of Sustainable Product–Service Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-15, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. William Quezado de F. Cavalcante & Arnaldo Coelho & Cristela Maia Bairrada, 2021. "Sustainability and Tourism Marketing: A Bibliometric Analysis of Publications between 1997 and 2020 Using VOSviewer Software," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-21, April.
    2. Savvas Papagiannidis & Dinara Davlembayeva, 2022. "Bringing Smart Home Technology to Peer-to-Peer Accommodation: Exploring the Drivers of Intention to Stay in Smart Accommodation," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 1189-1208, August.
    3. Phuong Thi Minh Nguyen & Khuong Ngoc Mai & Phuong Ngoc Duy Nguyen, 2021. "Alliance Management Practices for Higher Trust, Commitment and Inter-Organizational Relationship Performance: Evidence from Travel Companies in Vietnam," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-22, August.
    4. Garyfallos Fragidis & Kyriakos Riskos & Iordanis Kotzaivazoglou, 2022. "Designing the Tourist Journey for the Advancement of Sustainable Tourist Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-20, August.
    5. Ana-Maria Urdea & Cristinel Petrişor Constantin & Ioana-Mădălina Purcaru, 2021. "Implementing Experiential Marketing in the Digital Age for a More Sustainable Customer Relationship," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-17, February.
    6. Imran Khan & Mobin Fatma, 2023. "Does Perceived Sustainability Affect the Customer Responses toward the Brands? Role of Customer Engagement as a Mediator," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-13, May.
    7. Dongwei Yan & Chenke Wang & Tianyi Sun & Decheng Wen, 2024. "The impact of service experience on sustainable customer engagement: The mediation of green perceived value and customer satisfaction," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(3), pages 2175-2194, May.
    8. Cuesta-Valiño, Pedro & Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Pablo & Núnez-Barriopedro, Estela & García-Henche, Blanca, 2023. "Strategic orientation towards digitization to improve supermarket loyalty in an omnichannel context," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    9. Phuong Thi Minh Nguyen & Khuong Ngoc Mai & Phuong Ngoc Duy Nguyen, 2023. "Does Trust Affect Antecedents of Inter-Organizational Governance Mechanisms and Elicit Successful Collaboration via Innovation? An Empirical Study from a Market-Oriented Economy in Vietnam," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-27, June.
    10. Farida Saleem & Yingying Zhang-Zhang & Muhammad Imran Malik & Alawiya Allui, 2020. "Revisiting Stakeholder Theory and Environmentalism: Evidence from an Emerging Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-20, October.
    11. Heesup Han & Wei Quan & Eloy Gil-Cordero & Juan-Pedro Cabrera-Sánchez & Jongsik Yu, 2021. "Performance of Retail Stores at Airports and Their Role in Boosting Traveler Satisfaction and Willingness to Repurchase," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-14, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Han, Xiaoyun & Zheng, Yundan & Prentice, Catherine & Chen, Shuping, 2024. "Firm engagement: Scale development and verification," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    2. Imran Khan & Mobin Fatma, 2023. "Does Perceived Sustainability Affect the Customer Responses toward the Brands? Role of Customer Engagement as a Mediator," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-13, May.
    3. Catherine Prentice & Sandra Maria Correia Loureiro & João Guerreiro, 2023. "Engaging with intelligent voice assistants for wellbeing and brand attachment," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 30(5), pages 449-460, September.
    4. Islam, Jamid Ul & Hollebeek, Linda D. & Rahman, Zillur & Khan, Imran & Rasool, Aaleya, 2019. "Customer engagement in the service context: An empirical investigation of the construct, its antecedents and consequences," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 277-285.
    5. Itani, Omar S. & El Haddad, Rania & Kalra, Ashish, 2020. "Exploring the role of extrovert-introvert customers’ personality prototype as a driver of customer engagement: Does relationship duration matter?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    6. Nadeem, Waqar & Tan, Teck Ming & Tajvidi, Mina & Hajli, Nick, 2021. "How do experiences enhance brand relationship performance and value co-creation in social commerce? The role of consumer engagement and self brand-connection," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    7. James Agyei & Shaorong Sun & Emmanuel Kofi Penney & Eugene Abrokwah & Richmond Ofori-Boafo, 2021. "Linking CSR and Customer Engagement: The Role of Customer-Brand Identification and Customer Satisfaction," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, August.
    8. Banik, Shanta, 2021. "Exploring the involvement-patronage link in the phygital retail experiences," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    9. Hepola, Janne & Leppäniemi, Matti & Karjaluoto, Heikki, 2020. "Is it all about consumer engagement? Explaining continuance intention for utilitarian and hedonic service consumption," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    10. Lim, Weng Marc & Rasul, Tareq, 2022. "Customer engagement and social media: Revisiting the past to inform the future," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 325-342.
    11. Henkens, Bieke & Verleye, Katrien & Larivière, Bart, 2021. "The smarter, the better?! Customer well-being, engagement, and perceptions in smart service systems," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 425-447.
    12. Li, Dongmei & Han, Xiaoyun, 2021. "Assessing the influence of goal pursuit and emotional attachment on customer engagement behaviors," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    13. Ng, Sylvia C. & Sweeney, Jillian C. & Plewa, Carolin, 2020. "Customer engagement: A systematic review and future research priorities," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 235-252.
    14. Arghashi, Vahideh & Yuksel, Cenk Arsun, 2022. "Interactivity, Inspiration, and Perceived Usefulness! How retailers’ AR-apps improve consumer engagement through flow," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    15. Khan, Imran & Fatma, Mobin, 2024. "AR app-based brand engagement and outcomes: A moderated mediation approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    16. Avneet Kaur & Sujata Khandai & Jones Mathew, 2023. "Mapping the Field of Social Media Engagement: A Literature Review Using Bibliometric Analysis," FIIB Business Review, , vol. 12(4), pages 368-385, December.
    17. Raed Ibrahim Mohamad Ibrahim & Pelin Bayram, 2024. "The effect of customer engagement on customer loyalty: indication from the insurance industry in Jordan," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 29(2), pages 406-422, June.
    18. Onofrei, George & Filieri, Raffaele & Kennedy, Lorraine, 2022. "Social media interactions, purchase intention, and behavioural engagement: The mediating role of source and content factors," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 100-112.
    19. Ndhlovu, Thinkwell & Maree, Tania, 2022. "Consumer brand engagement: Refined measurement scales for product and service contexts," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 228-240.
    20. Mukta Srivastava & Sreeram Sivaramakrishnan & Gordhan K. Saini, 2021. "The Relationship Between Electronic Word-of-Mouth and Consumer Engagement: An Exploratory Study," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 10(1), pages 66-81, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:7:p:2674-:d:338300. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.