Comparisons of Competing Models between Attitudinal Loyalty and Behavioral
Loyalty Cheng, Shih-I

Abstract
A literature review identifies several classifications of customer loyalty; the most common are attitudinal and behavioral loyalties. Traditional studies, however, have not yet examined customer loyalty within a framework of these classifications. To address this deficit, this study uses linear structural modeling to explore the differences between attitudinal and behavioral loyalty models; 295 department store shoppers were used as subjects to determine how the influences of corporate image, switching costs and customer satisfaction found in an attitudinal loyalty model differ from those of a behavioral loyalty model. The results demonstrate that while these two competing models have goodness of fit, when comparing models with non-nested structures, behavioral loyalty exhibits better performance. In addition, no significant difference is observed between the influence of corporate image and that of customer satisfaction in attitudinal or behavioral loyalty model. Conversely, switching cost is shown to have a stronger influence on behavioral loyalty than it does on attitudinal loyalty.

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