1An Investigation into the Mediating Influence of Customer Expertise on the Antecedents and Consequences of Affect within Professional Service Markets

This study examines the role of Affect evoked on satisfaction judgments among consumers of differing expertise within a credence service context. Whilst there is increasing evidence to suggest an empirical link between Affect evoked and satisfaction within such contexts, previous research has largely ignored the role of consumer expertise as a mediating influence. Using a scenario based approach, the objective of the study was to test for multi-group invariance among competing structural models based on the ability of the respondents to form expectation and performance assessments about the service they are receiving. The results indicate that it is important to examine different levels of consumer expertise in detail to better understand how certain characteristics such as experience and qualifications influence the priority and functionality attached to service attributes when making satisfaction judgments within credence services. This may in turn have broader implications for our contextual understanding of service