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1. Introduction
The dominant theories in marketing are based on the premise that customers follow a conscious process of decision-making in choosing to purchase a certain good or service from a particular provider. This view is epitomized in the "theory of reasoned action" ([10] Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975), which holds that if a person intends to behave in a certain way, he or she probably will behave in that way. However, it is often difficult to trace the exact path of such "reasoned action"; for example, long-term commitments to a given provider can end without any apparent evidence of prior consideration. To explain this sort of phenomenon, [1] Ajzen and Fishbein (2000) proposed the "expectancy-value model" to describe the formation of attitudes over time. According to this model, when new issues that require an evaluative response arise, people can draw on relevant information or beliefs that are stored in their memories; as a consequence, they can react without much apparent consideration of the issues involved. Decisions may be viewed as either active based on that they are deliberate on the customer part or more passive in that they build on an a customer reaction that is initiated by an outside action from a company.
The prevailing consensus in the services literature is that switching from one service provider to another ([19] Keaveney, 1995) involves a cognitive process that is initiated by a so-called "trigger" ([27] Roos, 1999). Such triggers have been categorized into three groups:
reactional triggers (such as a service provider having dealt poorly with a customer);
situational triggers (such as a change in the customer's life situation); and
influential triggers (such as a change in the market).
In accordance with the "theory of reasoned action", researchers have regarded these triggers as initiating a deliberate and conscious switching process. However, recent research has suggested that this might not necessarily be the case ([15] Gustafsson et al. , 2005).
In developing the conventional view that switching is a deliberate cognitive process, researchers have adopted the traditional approach of service research, which holds that evaluations of service quality are based on direct evaluations of certain attributes of the service itself, the service process, the service personnel, and/or the service environment ([7] Edvardsson et al. ,...