| Summary: | Customer loyalty in Islamic banking has been a major concern to practitioners due to
increasing local and global competition from conventional and Islamic banks. The
Islamic banking sector in Palestine has been seen at the lowest level in terms ofnumber,
clients and assets compared to conventional banks. Aside of stagnant growth, banking
sector in Palestine has been criticised by customers with respect to service quality. In
early studie , SERVQUAL service quality model was extensively used to investigate
service quality issues in the banking sector. However, previous service quality model
did not include the dimension of culture to measure service quality. Past studies also
supported that service quality, satisfaction and image were among key factors to
customer loyalty in banking industry. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate
the influence of Pakistan Service Quality dimensions (PAKSERV), subjective norms,
customer satisfaction and bank image on customer loyalty of Palestine Islamic banking
customers. Two main theories used in this study, Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)
and Expectancy Disconfirmation Theory (EDT). The respondents for this study were
Islamic banks customers in Palestine. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed in
three cities: Nablus , Ramallah and Hebron using convenience sampling method.
Therefore, 357J) completed questionnaires were retrieved, giving a response rate of 71 %
of the original sample. The data was collected in six weeks beginning of September
2017. The research model was empirically tested using Partial Least Squares Structural
Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique. Results of SEM depicted that tangibility,
reliability, assurance, sincerity, personalization, formality and subjective norms
explained 80% variance in customer satisfaction. Additionally, customer satisfacnren
was found positively impact on customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction was found to
mediate the relationship between service quality dimensions (tangibility, reliability,
assurance, sincerity, personalization, formality and Subjective norms) and customer
loyalty. Moreover, the study also confirmed that bank image moderates the relationship
between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The results of this study have
provided several implications for practitioners and researchers. The findings of this
study provided insights to top managements of banking industry with regard to the
importance of the mediating role of customer satisfaction and subjective norms as the
most influencing construct.
|
|---|