Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/5356

Title

Expectations and satisfaction in channel member relationships in the Victorian (Australia) fruit industry

Author(s)

Hill, Railton M.;  Nanere, Marthin

Abstract

The paper reports findings of research into the dynamics of customer satisfaction formation amongst fruit producers and their distribution channel(s), within the economically important northern Victorian (Australia) fruit industry. The paper suggests reasons why previous approaches to the issue of satisfaction in channel member relationships, which typically utilize constructs of 'economic' and 'non-economic' satisfaction, may usefully be supplemented by application of the 'disconfirmation of expectations' model. The research actually tests a modification of the traditional disconfirmation model that incorporates dimensions of 'outcome' and 'process' at the levels of expectations, performance and disconfirmation-a 'dualistic' model. This had previously been tested only in a radically different business-to business-context, that of advertising creative services. The findings suggest that satisfactory measurement of growers' expectations can be achieved. They also suggest that the disconfirmation model does appear to apply in this previously untested service context, whether unitary measures of expectations and performance, or the dualistic interpretation of expectations/performance, are utilized.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Business and Enterprise

Source

Journal of Food Products Marketing, Vol. 12, no. 2 (2006), p. 27-46

Publication year

2006

Keyword(s)

Disconfirmation;  Distribution channels;  Expectations;  Fruit industry;  Grower satisfaction

Publisher

Haworth Press

Format

27-46

ISSN

1045-4446

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J038v12n02_03

Copyright

Copyright © 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

Peer reviewed