Staying the Consumption Course: Exploring the Individual Lock-in Process in Service Relationships

Schulte, Benjamin Krischan

ISBN 10: 3658087870 / ISBN 13: 9783658087876

Published by Springer Gabler, 2015

About this Item

pp. 228.

Seller Inventory # 26372767850

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Staying the Consumption Course: Exploring the Individual Lock-in Process in Service Relationships
• Publisher: Springer Gabler
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3658087870
• ISBN 13: 9783658087876
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Benjamin Krischan Schulte develops a process-model of consumer lock-in in service relationships by connecting three areas of research: path dependence, consumer behavior and service relationship marketing. He defines consumer lock-in as a situation of a potentially unaware inability to switch from or exit a consumption process due to entrenchment with increasing barriers on the individual and/or social level. Switching barriers are elaborated as consumer lock-in mechanisms. The resulting process model is outlined and empirically examined in an explorative panel study of a service relationship process in higher education. The author´s findings support the presence of consumer lock-in in services as an idiosyncratic process of gradual entrapment. The phenomenon has relevance for researchers and practitioners in complex service relationships, where lock-in was found to be a likely occurrence but difficult to grasp.

About the Author

Benjamin Krischan Schulte obtained a Doctoral Degree in Business from Freie Universität Berlin in 2014.