Construct Domain of Past Satisfaction In Morgan and Hunt’s (1994a) Commitment Trust Theory Model,

experienced past satisfaction is implicit to the relationship benefits (p.25)

construct as it is integral in the assessment by the relationship partner of the value of the expected relational benefits to them. With the addition of this precursor and influencing factor as an explicit construct, this research contends that the Morgan and Hunt (1994a) framework’s implicit inclusion does not represent the ongoing nature of the subscription based business relationship in MMO games, especially by not considering importance of expectations of gratification in the entertainment context (Wu et al., 2009).

This study argues that expectations generation is fundamentally different in business-to-business relationship contexts than entertainment based business-to-customer mass market relationships (Gruen, 1995).

The concept of expectations is an emergent one from the marketing business-to-customer subscription relationship literature (Bolton and Lemon, 1999). The accumulation of previous satisfaction is seen as an important driver of the customer’s levels of anticipated satisfaction fulfilment in entertainment products. In a sample of 490 households which all subscribed to interactive entertainment subscription television services, Bolton and Lemon (1999) found that overall satisfaction from the previous time period, and anticipation of that satisfaction to continue, had a direct impact on next period usage as shown in Figure 8 below.

Figure 8: Bolton and Lemon (1999) model

The commitment of individuals who have been highly satisfied in the past, and who have the expectation that they will continue to have that level of service, is higher than that of individuals who have had less positive past experiences (Bolton and Lemon, 1999). “Customers who have high levels of cumulative satisfaction with a continuously provided service in the current time period will have bigger usage levels of the service in a subsequent time period” (p.118). Consequently, consistent with the findings of Bolton and Lemon (1999), this study concludes that the expectation levels created by satisfaction in a previous time-period will have a direct impact on next period Commitment. Past Satisfaction in an entertainment environment sets the anticipation level of customers regarding their expectations of future satisfaction.

However, expectations in the Commitment Trust Theory model are defined in the business-to-business context as being in the domain of the Trust construct (Morgan and Hunt, 1994a). As Gruen (1995, p.451) explains though, a business-to-business relationship is very different from the business-to-customer relationship. Personal selling, close working relationships and multiple organisational linkages between numerous individuals all mean that business-to-business relational exchanges have a very different perception of expectancy. As both partners are closely linked, communication is more frequent and takes place both formally and possibly informally. Dissatisfaction can be communicated in a much more structured way, and feedback received much faster and more frequently. The substance of the relationship, and both the competence expectancy and benevolence trust one places in the relationship would thus logically be expected to be much more closely linked, due to the closeness of the communication and the rapid build up of experience based on relationship interaction. The relationship, and the product, produce or output of the relationship, are also usually very firmly linked, with the size of the investment by both parties usually meaning that relationship partners are very concerned about making the relationship work and actively pursue activities to resolve issues (Gruen, 1995).

In contrast, from a customer standpoint in a business-to-customer mass market relationship, the perspective is very different (Gruen, 1995, p.451).

The relationship is a very distant one, with the customer’s knowledge of the company itself based on marketing information delivered to the mass media, brand image or legalistic information sold with the product. Even very loyal customers would expect to have very few points of interpersonal contact with the selling company itself. Furthermore, in most countries the benevolence trust that a customer places in the company is perceptually coloured by consumer protection laws which are usually unbalanced to favour the consumer. There is an underlying legalistic structure that a customer can place trust into, in spite of any feelings towards the company (Gruen, 1995).

The goals and expectations of the customer in an MMO gaming relationship are also much more simplistic than a business-to-business relationship (Wu et al., 2009). As an entertainment product, relationship value in online gaming sits within a complex value framework where “emotional well-being”

(Castronova, 2003, p.127) is in conjunction with a very basic behavioural aim of “people do things that make them feel happier” (p.127). Customers buy entertainment products to generate satisfaction from their purchases and products; a goal which is much more simplistic than the more complex aims of necessity product purchases or the competitive advantage aims of business-to-business relationships. As an entertainment product, despite the perceptions of the benevolence in the producer of the product having relevance, this must be balanced against the customers goal of satisfaction and gratification, referred to in the literature as product elicited positive effect (Bloemer and Odekerken-Schroder, 2002). If customers view, based on their previous experience, that an online game will no longer be enjoyable or fulfilling to them, no matter what their views of the benevolence of the selling or producing games company might be, or the relative cost of the games to their income level, the value the customer places on the relationship will be expected to be low (Yee, 2006). From the MMO gaming, entertainment based, business-to-customer perspective, competency and delivery of fun is

fundamentally separate from the trust placed in the benevolence of the deliverers of that fun.

An important factor of expectancy is also importance of investment size (Ganesan and Hess, 1997). In a business-to-business relationship this is usually large, but from a customer’s perspective in an MMO relationship, the financial investment in an MMO product is usually very small; the typical MMO monthly subscription costs around £10 ($15) a month. Investment size is important to expectancy as a person may happily lend a friend, who has lost his wallet, some lunch money or money for a cab ride home, but larger sums may significantly alter the perceptions of benevolence trust and competence based trust regarding the possibility of repayment. With the combination of so little financially at stake and consumer protection laws to act as a safety net in case things do go wrong, the focus of the nature of expectancy is very different in an MMO setting from the high financial investment business-to-business relationship. The downside risk is much smaller, and so logically one would expect the focus of customers to shift more towards the gratification goals of the investment (Gruen, 1995).

The monthly nature of the MMO subscription itself is also important. This creates a very different contextual environment for expectations development than in different types of relationships. Expectancy, both of benevolence and competence, is built on positive episodes or critical events (Egan, 2008, p.158). In a business-to-business context, the relationship and lines of communication are much tighter, and the focus is usually coming from both parties to make the relationship work, with this as an ongoing, continuous experience across many different actors (Gruen, 1995, p.451).

In contrast, if the on-going subscription is going smoothly and without issue, an MMO game customer will only experience the technical product competence, the satisfaction derived from the purchase is the customer’s experienced focus of the relationship. This is an experience in which they have a critical event at the end of every month to test their commitment towards. Conversely, the customer’s experience of the benevolence or

caring nature of the company is seldom accessed, as that side of the relationship isn’t tested until something goes wrong; which may be never. For most customers their perceptions of the benevolence trust in the company is based on just that; perceptions, perhaps even unrealistic or unsubstantiated ones which contain a cognitive bias (Li et al., 2006). Customers will build from their assumptions of norms and shared values, and marketing information they have received, a perception of the company’s benevolence that, critically, they may never experience or have tested.

Clearly then, the types of expectancy trust, perceptual benevolence and experienced competence, are fundamentally different to the customer (Wu et al., 2009). The MMO customer experiences a continuous monthly re-subscription event which prompts a decision point in which the customer will evaluate his satisfaction experiences. For some customers, indeed for the vast majority of customers, as MMOs are designed to run as smoothly as possible (Bartle, 2003), as 12 million customers all complaining at once over a problem would be an unmanageable customer service issue, benevolence will always just be an untested perception.

Therefore due to of the combination of the small size of the investment, the investments gratification focus, the safety net of customer protection laws, the monthly experiential nature of the feedback and the mass market business-to-customer nature of the entertainment product, this study argues competence expectancy and benevolence trust are very different in the MMO context (Wu et al., 2009). Preliminary studies confirmed that experienced satisfaction, and the future expectation of satisfaction based on past events, was separated for MMO gamers from feelings of company benevolence. In particular, the netnographic study (Appendix B) found that customers were willing to ignore many kinds of company behaviours they perceive as annoying as long as they still felt satisfied by the product.

Past Satisfaction is…the accumulation of previous product elicited positive effect experiences that enable customers to have confidence in their expectancy of future continued gratification.

Box 5: Operational Definition of Past Satisfaction

This study’s operational definition of past satisfaction is based on Ganesan and Hess’s (1997) and Gruen’s (1995) definitions of the competence expectancy aspects of trust, and Bloemer and Odekerken-Schroder’s (2002) definition of product elicited positive effect. This definition focuses on experiences. MMO product past satisfaction is an experienced psychological output for a customer who has subscribed many times, and relates to the confidence that these experiences have created in future gratification. This definition of satisfaction expectancy specifically excludes expectations of benevolence, which is defined by the Trust construct of this study.