Investments in consumer relationships: A cross-country and cross-industry exploration

This research, investigating retailer-consumer relationships, has three dis tinct intended contributions: (1) It shows that different relationship mark eting tactics have a differential impact on consumer perceptions of a retai ler's relationship investment; (2) it demonstrates that perceived relations hip investment affects relationship quality, ultimately leading to behavior al loyalty; and (3) it reveals that the effect of perceived relationship in vestment on relationship quality is contingent on a consumer's product cate gory involvement and proneness to engage in retail relationships. The autho rs empirically cross-validate the underlying conceptual model by studying s ix consumer samples in a three-country, transatlantic, comparative survey t hat investigates two industries.