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Strategic business valuation
Edited by Nick Bontis, Chris Bart and Patricia Wakefield
Introduction
The third most-often cited construct in the intellectual capital literature is customer capital ([17], [18] Bontis, 1998, 1999). As such, customer capital is hypothesized to be a driving force behind organizational performance ([19] Bontis and Fitz-enz, 2002). The satisfaction of customers is an extremely popular subject in the extant management literature. This is because it is often associated with higher customer loyalty rates and increased economic returns that drive strategic business valuation ([3] Anderson et al. , 1994, [4] Anderson and Srinivasan, 2003, [38] Gronholdt et al. , 2000, [47] Parasuraman and Grewal, 2000, [55] Spiteri and Dion, 2004, [56] Srinivasan et al. , 2002). Most previous research projects have investigated new approaches to increase customer satisfaction. However, businesses have begun to realize that satisfied customers are not always profitable. Now, the attention has shifted to understanding of the link between satisfaction and profitability ([15] Bloemer and Kasper, 1995, [65] Zeithaml, 2000). Researchers examine the consequences of satisfaction such as reputation, loyalty and service recommendation ([11] Athanassopoulos et al. , 2001, [40] Hallowell, 1996).
The American Customer Satisfaction Model (ACSM) ([32] Fornell et al. , 1996) is one of the most widely employed models in satisfaction research. It is a causal model describing several key antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction. The model and its various adaptations have been utilized in numerous multi-discipline investigations, for example, in information systems ([29] Dow et al. , 2006, [57] Turel and Serenko, 2006), banking ([12] Ball et al. , 2004, [22] Chakravarty et al. , 2004, [40] Hallowell, 1996, [45] Mukherjee et al. , 2003), transportation, communications, and retailing ([10] Arnett et al. , 2003).
The causal relationship between satisfaction and service recommendation has not been explored in the context of the American Customer Satisfaction Model. The original model proposed a negative link between customer satisfaction and complaining behavior; service/product recommendation was not included. However, service/product recommendation factors have been explored together with customer satisfaction ([20] Brown et al. , 2005, [37] Gremler et al. , 2001). Some projects report a positive association ([11] Athanassopoulos et al. , 2001, [49] Ranaweera and Prabhu, 2003, [61] Wirtz and Chew, 2002, [66] Zeithaml et al. ,...