Word-Of-Mouth Referrals in the Domain of Relationship Marketing

Abstract

This article presents the results of an exploratory study which aimed to develop a new framework for understanding post-purchase word-of-mouth in a relationship context. New insights into word-of-mouth communication in the relationship context were also attempted by applying the concept of post-decisional cognitive dissonance to this framework. The empirical focus of the research was on high-involvement hospitality service processes in North America as it is argued that these services are influenced by word-of-mouth communication and cognitive dissonance. The dual objectives of this study were developing a new framework for studying word-of-mouth communication of loyal customers, and to find out if post-purchase cognitive dissonance is reflected in the word-of-mouth communication once the relationship with the service provider is established. The results of this research are presented in a holistic framework we call the relationship communications globe, in which all the related concepts are connected theoretically and empirically.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 18 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.