Customer engagement behaviours in a social media context revisited: using both the formative measurement model and text mining techniques

ABSTRACT

Most research in the field of customer engagement employs multi-item measures that are comceptualised as three-dimensional and reflective models. This leaves room to suggest an alternative approach for defining and operationalising the construct. From a behavioural standpoint, we propose a higher-order formative measurement model (FMM) underlying customer engagement behaviours (CEBs) in the context of Facebook fan pages. Data from 259 restaurant customers show that the FMM works well, both theoretically and empirically, and that CEBs include eight dimensions and 16 indices. We also apply text mining (TM) techniques to analyse customers’ Facebook posts. The findings indicate that some dimensions identified by the FMM could not be extracted using TM, and the TM analysis provided clues regarding the FMM indices; the two approaches complement rather than compete with each other. These results serve as a basis for scale development in future research, and provide guidelines for managers to enhance long-term customer relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Customer engagement
• social media-based customer engagement behaviours
• formative measurement model
• second-order formative construct
• social media-based marketing
• Facebook fan page

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge a grant (MOST 107-2410-H-324-006) in support of this study from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://www.facebook.com/pg/mcdonalds.tw/community/?ref=page_internal (accessed 31/10/21)

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C. [MOST 107-2410-H-324-006].

Notes on contributors

Chaang-Iuan Ho

Chaang-Iuan Ho is an associate professor in the Department of Leisure Services Management at Chaoyang University of Technology (Taiwan). Her research interests cover Internet-based tourism information search, e-commerce in the tourism industry, tourist behaviour, and transport/tourism studies. She has published refereed papers in leading international journals in the field of travel and tourism, including Tourism Management, the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, Current Issues in Tourism, the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, and the Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research. Her email address is [email protected]

Ming-Chih Chen

Ming-Chih Chen is a professor in the Graduate Institute of Business Administration at Fu Jen Catholic University (Taiwan). Her research interests include data mining, reliability and maintainability, optimisation and operation research. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals, including the Annals of Operation Research, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Quality and Safety Engineering, and the International Journal of Reliability. Her email address is [email protected].

Ya-Wei Shih

Ya-Wei Shih holds a Master of Business Administration degree in International Business from Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan, and a Master of Science degree from University of Stirling, UK, with a major in MSc Marketing. She is currently employed as a product planner by ARPlanet Digital Technology Company. Her email address is [email protected]