Religion, Religiosity, and Consumer Switching Behaviors - Research Paper Example

Topic: Relationship between consumer religiousness and store/company image. Introduction: It is very important for the marketing directors to give due consideration and value to the religious beliefs of their stakeholders prior to advertising a new product. In order to gain consumer satisfaction and appreciation, it is important for the companies to understand the relationship between consumers’ religiosity, their loyalty and the company’s image. A company’s activities, policies and quality of services either develop or degrade its image in the eyes of its customers. Moreover, customers judge a company’s image according to their own religiosity and decide whether to remain loyal to the company or otherwise. The three variables are inter-related and have an impact upon one another. This research will identify the relationship between consumer’s religiousness and the company image with a case study of the Chick-fil-a store that remains closed on Sundays given the religious significance of Sundays to Christians. Chick-fil-a is owned by Christians and Christians also live in the locality of the store. What needs to be studied is if the Chick-fil-a’s decision to remain closed on Sundays earns it customers’ loyalty because they feel that there religious concerns are respected? Would it would speak bad about Chick-fil-a if it chose to remain open on Sundays? Objectives: With a study on Chick-fil-a, this research is intended to: Identify the relationship between consumers’ religiousness and company’s image, and Verify if consumers’ loyalty is linked with the company’s image. Verify if consumers’ loyalty is defined by their religiosity. Research question: Is there a relationship between consumer religiousness and store/company image and perhaps even more important consumer loyalty when companies implement policies consistent with consumer values? Significance of the research: In the present age, ethics is a major consideration specially when it comes to business. Enterprises are investing a lot just to make sure they earn an edge over their competitors on ethical grounds, because they know their customers value it. A lot of theories have been put forward to elaborate ethical considerations on all aspects of business including research and development. This is fundamentally because today, there has been an increase in general awareness among the people about health and safety concerns than past. Ethics finds its origin in religion. What religion considers right is considered ethical and what religion deems wrong is thought of as unethical. Adjusting the products to the religious expectations of the consumers is necessary for a company for effective risk management and defense of its image. Companies earn on their image. Branded costumes are preferred over others because the consumers have faith in the brand. Hence, there is a need for the producers to realize the strength of the influence of customers’ religiousness on their image. The religion’s impact on customers’ attitude is often overlooked in a secular society. (Mokhlis, 2006, p. 64). This research will identify and fill in the gaps in the existing body of knowledge about the relationship between customer religiousness and the image of companies. Research on this link between the two variables is essential in order to make the entrepreneurs aware about the sensitivity of the matter. Results of this research will help the companies to synchronize their frequently developing and altering products with the permanence of the religious concerns of their consumers. Literature review: Different types of religiosity: “Religiosity is an intricate concept and a variegated human phenomenon, and seems to cover considerable ground such as behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, feelings and experiences.” (Mokhlis, 2009, p. 77). (Allport, 1950 cited in Kum-Lung and Teck-Chai, 2010, p. 226) classified religious commitment into intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity. Intrinsic religiosity causes one to look at the world from the spectacles of religion and behave as taught by it while extrinsic religiosity is influenced by one’s own visualization of the religion to suit one’s aptitude and taste. According to this definition, once we say that ethics finds its origin in religiosity, it is the intrinsic religiosity that we talk about. According to (Donahue, 1985 cited in Kum-Lung and Teck-Chai, 2010, p. 226), religiousness can not be measured on the scale of extrinsic religiosity. (Mokhlis, 2009) has furthered the explanation by differentiating between unidimensional and multidimensional religiosity. He associated the former with apparent practice of religion where the purpose of practice could even be non-religious in itself, while the latter addressed a holistic approach towards implementing religious teachings in the matters of daily life. Business ethics: There are some rules that one should follow to make one’s business successful. Success of a business depends on the policies formed by the company. Business ethics controls the policies implemented by the owners. It is the requirement of ethics to respect the views and beliefs of the customers living in the surroundings of the business. People might react to some matters promptly because of a certain trait or belief they own while they may not value that trait or belief in other matters in general. (Kahle et al, n.d., p. 257). Business ethics require the owners to respect such beliefs of the customers and condemn all such practices that might offend them in any way. That is why younger Americans buy more religious things than elderly Americans. (Park and Baker, 2007, p. 514). It is common for people not to go shopping on Sundays while living in areas with a higher level of spiritualism. (Siguaw and Simpson, 2001, p. 37). Similarly, conservative people tend to stick to their fundamental values more than their broad minded counterparts. Businessmen need to consider the locality in which they run the business and adopt the policies accordingly. Religiousness develops loyalty in customers: In addition to people with different levels of religiosity over time, there are others who tend to maintain the same level of religiosity in their life, be it high, mediocre or low. The relative stability of their religiosity also enables a similar stability in their response to a company on its product. The religiosity also has an impact on the loyalty customers maintain with a company. “Jewish consumers tend to be more innovative and less brand and store loyal than non-Jewish consumers.”(Hirschman, 1981 cited in Mokhlis, 2009, p. 78). (Anderson, 1970 and Patai, 1977 cited in McDaniel and Burnett, 1990, p. 107) mentioned that Catholics had a liking for spending time in nonproductive casual pursuits. Highly religious customers make good customers as compared to the non-religious customers. (Choi, 2010, p. 168). While companies want their customers to be less religious to avoid religious analysis of their policies, at the same time, they have to prefer highly religious consumers over less religious ones because they are more loyal with the company. “…religious commitment is positively associated with preference for national brands.” (Wilkes et al. 1986 cited in Ong and Moschis, n.d., p. 4). Loyalty is one of the traits of ethics. It is the demand of ethics to remain loyal to a company whose policies are according to the religion. Contemporary American Christianity and contemporary American consumer culture are closely linked yet the link is quite contradictable. (James, 2008). Hypotheses: Past researchers as mentioned above, have addressed different traits of religiosity separately while defining its role in consumer behavior towards a company. So, this research tends to combine the different traits to take the definition of the relation between religiosity and consumer loyalty to the next level. This leads to the development of hypothesis: “Multidimensional, intrinsic religiosity is a positive determinant in terms of consumer loyalty towards Chick-fil-a.” In addition to this, continuation of a client-customer relationship also depends upon the profile of repute and image the client maintains. A defaming client might loose its customers. Thus, the hypothesis develops: “Chick-fil-a’s image is a positive determinant in terms of consumer loyalty.” Third dimension of the relation between the three vartiables leads to the development of the following hypothesis. “Multidimensional, intrinsic religiosity is a positive determinant related to the Chick-fil-a’s image.” References: Choi, Y. (2010). Religion, religiosity, and South Korean consumer switching Behaviors. Journal of Consumer Behaviour. 9: 151-171. doi: 10.1002/cb.292. James, D. (ed.) (2008). Shopping for Jesus: Faith in Marketing in the USA. Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing. Kahle, L. R., Kau, A., Tambyah, S., Tan, S. And Jung, K. (n.d.). Religion, religiosity, and values: implications for consumer behavior. p. 249-259. Kum-Lung, C. and Teck-Chai, L. (2010, May). Attitude towards Business Ethics: Examining the Influence of Religiosity, Gender and Education Levels. International Journal of Marketing Studies. 2(1): 225-232. McDonald, S. W. and Burnett, J. J. (1990). Consumer Religiosity and Retail Store Evaluative Criteria. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 18(2): 101-112. Mokhlis, S, (2006). The Effect of Religiosity on Shopping Orientation: An Exploratory Study in Malaysia. The Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge. 9(1): 64-74. Mokhlis, S. (2009, July). Relevancy and Measurement of Religiosity in Consumer Behavior Research. International Business Research. 2(3): 75-84. Ong, F. S. and Moschis, G. P. (n.d.). Religiosity and consumer behavior: A cross-cultural study. P. 1-18. Park, J. Z. and Baker, J. (2007). WhatWould Jesus Buy: American Consumption of Religious and Spiritual Material Goods. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 46(4): 501-517. Siguaw, J. A. and Simpson, P. M. (2001). Effects of religiousness on Sunday shopping and outshopping behaviours: a study of shopper attitudes and behaviours in the American South. P. 24-40. Read More