Title: Antecedents of trust, corporate image, and switching costs: a case in telecommunication services in the Kurdistan region of Iraq

Authors: Ahmet Demir; Taylan Budur; Almas Heshmati

Addresses: Ishik University, Sulaimani, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Iraq ' Ishik University, Sulaimani, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Iraq ' Jönköping International Business School (JIBS), Jönköping University, Sweden; Department of Economics, Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea

Abstract: This study elaborates on the direct effects of the antecedents of customer trust, corporate image, and the cost of switching service providers. It also examines the indirect effects of these antecedents on customer loyalty and satisfaction through trust, improved corporate image, and lower switching costs. The results of our analysis, which covered a sample of 514 customers in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, show that all the four antecedents studied had both direct and indirect effects on trust, corporate image, switching costs, satisfaction, and loyalty. We also observe that satisfaction is an important mediator between loyalty and the other variables. However, conflict handling has very strong direct and indirect impacts on the other dependent variables. There are some differences between our findings and those of previous research on countries like Turkey, China, and western cultures.

Keywords: corporate image; trust; switching costs; telecommunications service sector; GSM operators; Iraq.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2021.111892

International Journal of Mobile Communications, 2021 Vol.19 No.1, pp.53 - 74

Received: 15 Aug 2018
Accepted: 25 Nov 2019
Published online: 18 Dec 2020 *

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