Commitment is a key construct commonly found in major streams of research: buyer-seller relationships and organizational commitment.
Although commitment has been regarded as central to successful relationships, there is no clear reason why individual consumers want to commit to long-term relationships with a particular firm. Buttle (1996) argues that a wide adoption of relationship marketing is primarily driven by corporate economics i.e., firms earn more profits as the customer retention rate increases. He further suggests that there is little evidence that customers want to enter into long-term partnerships. His argument prompts some very fundamental questions from a consumer perspective: what motivates individual consumers to commit themselves to long-term relationships with a particular firm? What is the nature of consumer commitment? And, what are the antecedents and consequences of such a commitment? This research represents an attempt to answer these questions.