Customers’ Exogenous and Endogenous Factors: The Intervening Effect of Brand Community

Abstract

The aim of this study is twofold. Firstly, to examine the degree to which customers’ exogenous factors, i.e., customer empowerment and customer engagement significantly predict customers’ endogenous factors, e.g., customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Secondly, to investigate the mediating role of brand community, as an intervening exogenous factor in the relationships among these factors. Data were collected using a questionnaire developed for the purpose of the study. A total of 1320 questionnaires were administered to a sample of students of private universities in Saudi Arabia, 895 questionnaires were returned complete, with a response rate of 67.8%. the results indicated that customer empowerment and engagement were significantly related to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Basically, the results underlined a fact that brand community significantly mediated the effect of customer empowerment on customer satisfaction but not the effect of customer engagement on customer loyalty. On the basis of these results, implications and recommendations were provided.