Control variables
The purpose of this paper is to study the relationships in the
STL framework before and after the financial crisis. However,
a number of financial market, customer–seller, and
consumer financial factors may be related to the endogenous
constructs in the STL framework, and their effects should
therefore be taken into account (e.g., Johansson et al.,
2012). These factors, which are included as control variables
in the study, include financial market functioning, time duration
of consumers’ relationship with their bank, consumer
financial healthiness, consumer financial knowledge, and
consumer financial involvement. Although the control variables
are not the focus of this study, controlling for their effects
provides a stronger test of the proposed hypotheses
(Greene, 2000).