Impact of social, epistemic and conditional values on customer satisfaction and loyalty in automobile industry : a structural equation modelling

The purpose of this study is to identify the social, epistemic and conditional values associated with automobiles and to examine their impact on customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. A sample size of 198 respondents was chosen from various locations near Jeddah in Saudi Arabia using convenient sampling techniques. A multi-factor customer perceived value questionnaire with a Likert scale from 1 to 5 was used to collect the data to determine the social, epistemic and conditional perceived values associated with automobiles and their impact on customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. AMOS was used to generate the result and to analyse the collected data. 5 items were reduced from the original construct to meet the standard loading during the confi rmatory factor analysis. Then structural modelling was conducted on a full model and satisfaction as a mediator model. The findings were that epistemic value and conditional value have a positive and significant impact on satisfaction. Also epistemic value and satisfaction have a positive and significant impact on loyalty. However, social value has a negative impact on satisfaction and loyalty in the full model and the mediator model as well. Therefore, epistemic value and conditional value are important dimensions or values associated with automobile brands in Saudi Arabia and they affect customer satisfactions and loyalty.