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1. Introduction
Competition amongst telecommunication networks has increased recently in Ghana due to the implementation of the mobile number portability law. This has made customer switching behavior rampant in the telecommunication industry. Hence, to survive, telecommunication companies must develop strategies that improve customer loyalty.
The need for organisations to have loyal customers and how organisations can drive customer loyalty are well documented (see, for example, Hemsley-Brown and Alnawas, 2016; Romaniuk and Nenycz-Thiel, 2013). Previous research indicates that brand attachment is conducive for developing brand loyalty; given that ‘individuals with a strong emotional attachment to an object also display specific behaviours such as proximity maintenance and separation distress’ (Thomson et al., 2005, p. 79).
Several studies have provided different definitions and conceptualisations for product brand attachment (Malär et al., 2011; Park et al., 2010; Schmalz and Orth, 2012; Thomson et al., 2005). Also, a growing number of studies are investigating brand attachment in the service sector, as it is characterised by high levels of competition and customer switching behavior (Brocato et al., 2015; Levy and Hino, 2016). However, most of these studies on service brand attachment have focused on atmosphere-dominant service firms (see Brocato et al., 2015; Kim and Stepchenkova, 2017), while studies investigating service brand attachment in a non-atmosphere-dominant service firms like the telecommunication services remain rare.
Research has shown that customer experience with brands affects their attitudes and behaviour towards the brand. For example, Jin et al. (2013) noted that customer perceptions of experiential value, aesthetics, escapism, service excellence and customer return on investment (CROI) affect the quality of the customer–firm relationship and brand loyalty. In this light, Kim and Stepchenkova (2017) advanced the argument that experiential value influences customer emotions and self-connectivity, leading to brand loyalty. Nonetheless, its association to brand attachment remains under-researched. To address these gaps in the literature, this study examines the relationship between experiential value, brand attachment and brand loyalty. Thus, this study focused on how the non-atmosphere-dominant dimension of experiential value (thus service excellence and CROI) affects brand attachment. We argue that experiential value reinforces identity-based and bonding-based attachment and consequently determines brand loyalty.
Against the background, our study contributes to the theory by expanding the conceptualisation and application of attachment theory...