An Empirical Study on the Relationship Marketing Mechanism: A Psychological Contract Perspective

Abstract

The focus to date has been in the psychological contract between employer and employee. Based on the organizational behavior studies, this paper translates this theory to marketing relationships and develops a theoretical model involving psychological contract, customer trust, customer commitment, and customer loyalty, i.e., the relationship marketing mechanism based upon psychological contract. This relationship marketing mechanism is validated by an empirical study from two different service industries using the structural equation modeling PLS-Graph package. Management implications are discussed and the findings of this study provide not only theoretical guidance for marketing research, but also empirical evidences for marketing practices.