Antecedents and Consequences of Affective Commitment

The primary objective of this study is to assess the impact of three psychological antecedents (position involvement, volitional choice and informational complexity) on affective commitment in a financial service setting. Furthermore, this study addresses the consequences of affective commitment on loyalty in terms of word of mouth, purchase intention, price insensitivity and complaining. An empirical research among 439 customers of a financial service was conducted to test our hypothesized model and compare it to a rival model. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) results reveal that affective commitment can best be explained by position involvement. Moreover, affective commitment is a key determinant of word of mouth, purchase intention and price sensitivity. Managerial implications, limitations and directions for future research are provided