Does commitment really provide protection against critical incidents and competitive switching incentives? The differential impact of affective and calculative commitment

摘要

In this paper, we investigate the effect of affective and calculative commitment on customer loyalty. More specifically, we examine whether these different types of commitment provide a stronger or weaker protection against critical incidents caused by the favourtie company and positive switching incentives offered by competitive companies. We find that the difference in effect crucially depends on the seriousness of the event and the length of the planning horizon. Differences become more pronounced when the event has more far-reaching or long term consequences.