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Managing passenger behavioral intention: an integrated framework for service quality, satisfaction, perceived value, and switching barriers

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Abstract

This paper seeks to improve our understanding of passengers’ behavioral intention by proposing an integrated framework from the attitudinal perspective. According to the literature in marketing research, we establish a causal relationship model that considers “service quality-satisfaction-behavioral intentions” paradigm, perceived value theory, and switching barrier theory. Exploring passengers’ behavioral intention from satisfaction and perceived value help to understand how passengers are attracted by the company, while switching barriers assist in realizing how passengers are “locked” into a relationship with the current company. Furthermore, in order to capture the nature of service quality, we adopt a hierarchical factor structure which serves service quality as the higher-order factor. In this study, coach industry is selected as our research subject. The empirical results, as hypothesized, show that all causal relationships are statistically significant, and perceived value us the most important predictor of satisfaction and passengers’ behavioral intention. In conclusion, the managerial implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Transportation Technology and Management, National Chiao Tung University, 1001, Ta Hsueh Road, East Dist, Hsinchu, 30010, Taiwan

    William Jen

  2. Department of Marketing, Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Rungting Tu

  3. Department of Transportation Technology and Management, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

    Tim Lu

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  1. William Jen
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  2. Rungting Tu
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  3. Tim Lu
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Correspondence to William Jen.

Appendix

Appendix

The measurement items of each construct (see Table 5).

Table 5  
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Jen, W., Tu, R. & Lu, T. Managing passenger behavioral intention: an integrated framework for service quality, satisfaction, perceived value, and switching barriers. Transportation 38, 321–342 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-010-9306-9

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