Relationship Value and Relationship Quality: An Exploration of Its Antecedents on Customer Loyalty

The aim of this study is to examine relationship value and relationship quality, and its effect on customer loyalty in the context of relationship marketing. Four key relationship value variables of economic value, service value, relational value and social value are examined in this study. The study focuses on the Malaysian telecommunication industry and based on the business-to-customer environment. The structural equation modelling technique is used to empirically test the proposed hypotheses using a sample of 350 customers collected by a questionnaire survey. The results showed that three relationship value variables of economic value, service value, and social value have significantly influenced relationship quality. Customer loyalty is significantly affected by relationship quality. There is no significant effect of relational value and relationship quality. The contribution of this paper is twofold. From a theoretical perspective, the social exchange theory is used to explain and conceptualize relationship marketing paradigms. It offers both a conceptual foundation and empirical-based evaluation of customer loyalty through the context of relationship value and relationship quality. The relationship value dimensions of economic value, service value, and social value is the antecedent to relationship quality, which lead to customer loyalty. In the practical perspective, the findings proposed that the telecommunication service providers should focus on relationship value through providing better value for money packages, innovation of services and improve social interaction with customers to build stronger relationship quality and achieve customer loyalty.

literature suggests the current research to investigate the role of relationship value towards the customer loyalty within the telecommunication industry settings in Malaysia.

Relationship Quality
Relationship quality is a consumer's evaluation of the strength of his or her relationship with the service provider (Crosby, Evans and Cowles, 1990). Relationship quality is far more advanced than service quality as a key source of superior organisational performance and competitive advantage. The focus of relationship quality is long-term customer relationships rather than short-term basis transactions. Researchers have provided multi-dimensions on the concept of relationship quality. Hon and Grunig (1999) proposed the six dimensions of trust, control mutuality, satisfaction, commitment, exchange relationships, and communal relationships. Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner and Gremler (2002), Ulaga and Eggert (2006) and Caceres and Paparoidamis (2007) conceptualises relationship quality as trust, commitment, and satisfaction. Furthermore, Myhal et al. (2008) assert that relationship quality comprises six dimensions of trust, commitment, satisfaction, minimal opportunism, conflict, and communication. Many studies have suggested the connotation of relationship quality based on trust, satisfaction and commitment (Hon and Grunig, 1999;Caceres and Paparoidamis, 2007;Myhal et al., 2008). This study focuses on trust, satisfaction and commitment as the basis of formation of the measurement items for relationship quality. The synthesis of these three dimensions in relationship quality assists us in analysing the capabilities of telecommunication services to achieve effective customer relationship and loyalty.

Economic Value
Economic value refers to measurable monetary costs and benefits. The importance to connect value based on benefits-costs evaluation by focusing more on the influencing factors which lead to the consequences of relationships rather than simply to transaction exchanged between firm and customers. Many authors have concluded that customer's economic value involves a trade-off between benefits and costs (Rintamäki, Kuusela, and Mitronen, 2007;Ruiz, Gremler, Washburn, and Carrión, 2008;Ulaga and Chacour, 2001). However, a few authors have provided different dimensions of economic value as they believed it is beyond the evaluation of costs and benefits. According to Holbrook (1999), economic value is a bi-dimensional construct composed of two dimensions -efficiency and quality. Efficiency is closely related to the trade-off of benefits and costs perspective. Efficiency is determined through comparison of what is obtained in an exchange relationship (i.e., products, services, knowledge, and other benefits) with what is given for the purchase (i.e., money, time, effort, and other costs). Quality dimension refers to reactive appreciation of the potential ability of an object or experience to accomplish a goal or to perform a function (Holbrook, 1999). Wilson and Jantrania (1996) cluster economic value into cost reduction, value engineering, investment quality and concurrent engineering. Ho, Moon,  conducted a study on customer perceived value on luxury brands, and they concluded that customers who perceive high symbolic, economic and functional values of the products are more likely to develop a positive relationship with the brands. This implies that better relationship quality strength is build when economic value is strong. Barry and Doney (2011) found that relationship quality is impacted by perceived economic value in the global industrial services context. The positive relationship between economic value and relationship quality is achieved through value generated from transactional benefits and costs, and they further suggested for superior deals at the buyer-seller transaction level to improve relationship quality (Barry and Doney, 2011) . In contrast, Ngelambong, Nor, Omar and Kibal (2016) investigated the interrelationship between relationship value and relationship satisfaction in hospitality brand social networking sites, and they have encountered that economic benefits had no significant effect on relationship satisfaction. Relationship satisfaction is an important components of relationship quality as it represent the strength of relationship between seller and buyer (Kim, Lee and Yoo, 2006). As a result, the following hypothesis is developed: H 1 : Economic value has a positive effect on relationship quality. 2.5 Service Value Zeithaml (1988) conceptualise service value as consumers weigh their perceptions of service quality against the necessary sacrifices made to acquire the service. The constructs of service quality and sacrifice was further tested by other scholars, to indicate its relationship with service value. A cross-sectional investigation on the conceptualisation of service value was conducted by Cronin, Brady, Brand, Hightower and Shemwell (1997), they claimed that service quality and sacrifice constructs are linked to service value in consumer's purchase intention. The investigation on service value construct is quite apparent in the service industries (Brady and Robertson, 1999). Lapierre (2000) proposed four dimensions of service value -responsiveness, flexibility, reliability, and technical competence. Lapierre (2000) clusters service value into responsiveness, flexibility, reliability, and technical competence. Ponnam and Paul (2016) conducted a study on the Indian retail banking industry, and derived six dimensions for service value. The dimensions are customer intimacy, product leadership, service equity, perceived sacrifice, service quality, and operational excellence. ass.ccsenet.org Asian Social Science Vol. 13, No. 12 2017Lee (2016 found the interrelationship between relationship quality and service value. Kim and Han (2010) conducted a consumer behavioral study in the medical service industry at South Korea, and found that service value had a significant and positive relationship with relationship quality. Kim and Han (2010) further proposed that differentiation strategies and improvement in service reliability contributed to better relationship quality between the service providers and customers. This leads to the second research hypothesis. H 2 : Service value has a positive effect on relationship quality.

Relational Value
Relational value refers to an outcome from a collaborative relationship that enhances the competitive abilities of partners (Lapierre, 2000). Relational value emerged through customers assessment of the benefits and effectiveness of the relationships (Ulaga, 2003). Scholars have provided different perspectives on relational value construct and they classified it as intimacy (Kim and Trail, 2011), image (Lapierre, 2000), reputation (Hansen, Samuelsen and Silseth, 2008), conflict (Rusbult, Farrell, Rogers andMainous, 1988, Lapierre, 2000), solidarity (Heide and John, 1992;Lapierre, 2000), interdependence (Dash, Bruning and Guin, 2006), length or duration of relationship (Roslin and Melewar, 2004) and trust (Lapierre, 2000). Past studies have explored the dimensions of relationship value and even tested on relationship quality construct and also linked to consumer behavioural outcomes. Hansen et al. (2008) stated that reputation is an important aspect of value and enhances relationship value. Substantially customer remains loyal to firm with good reputation (Nyugen, Leclerc and LeBlanc, 2013). In the context of business-to-customer relationship, the nature of conflict is unavoidable in any relational exchanges (Anderson and Narus, 1990). Ndubisi and Wah (2005) affirm that conflicts played an important role in building consumer trust and relationship quality. Relationship value is built upon interdependence in relational exchange and it has causal link to the achievement of relationship quality (Dash et al., 2006). A service provider that have achieved a level of customer intimacy with specific customer segment, the value sharing will evolve the relationship to longer term partnership. In a study conducted in Thailand's housing estate industry, relational value has a significant relationship with customer satisfaction (a dimension of relationship quality), and customer loyalty (Sunthorncheewin, Panichpathom, Ngarmyarn and Ratanaprichavej, 2013). Sunthorncheewin et al. (2013) reported that relational value is the most important factor influencing customer satisfaction, compared to other values such as functional, social and emotional. Strong relational values in the aspect of customer intimacy, reputation of the real estate developers and trust are important in consumer decision making when purchasing real estate property. The following hypothesis is formed: H 3 : Relational value has a positive effect on relationship quality.

Social Value
Social value is determined by the utility perceived through customer identification with reference groups (Sheth, Newman and Gross, 1991). Social value is related to affective value and an element that manage customer relationship value in service context (Gale, 1994). Wilson and Jantrania (1996) assert that social value is a component of behavioural dimension which includes social bonding, trust and culture. Sherrouse, Clement and Semmens (2011) and Brown (2013) conceptualise social value based on non-monetary related values such as spiritual, aesthetic and subsistence.
In a study conducted in Spain's retail banking industry, social value has no significant relationship with customer satisfaction (Roig, Guillén, Coll, and Saumell, 2013). Customer satisfaction is a dimension of relationship quality (Myhal et a., 2008;Caceres and Paparoidamis, 2007). However, Roig et al. (2013) reported that social value had a direct positive significant relationship with customer loyalty. Therefore, maintaining a good social reputation by the service provider is important to create and enhance customer's social value. Prestige brands are related to customer perceived high social value (Ho et al., 2012). Chen and Myagmarsuren (2011) assert that customer prioritised on the telecommunication service providers' brand and company images when engaging them. They found that brand and company images significantly influenced relationship quality, and also existed interrelationship between relationship quality and relationship value. Therefore, in the context of telecommunication services, customer relates brand and company images with the excellent service by the providers. Although Sunthorncheewin et al. (2013) found exist significant relationship between social value and customer satisfaction (a dimension of relationship quality), but the correlation strength is weak. Choo, Moon,  investigated customer value in luxury brands in South Korea, and they concluded that high symbolic, social and economic values of luxury brands contributed to positive relationship quality between consumers and suppliers. Considering all the above explanations, the following hypothesis is developed: H 4 : Social value has a positive effect on relationship quality.

Customer Loyalty
Customer loyalty is defined as "a deeply held commitment to re-buy or re-patronize a preferred product or service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brandset purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts have the potential to cause switching behaviour" (Oliver, 1999). Hennig-Thurau et al. (2002) assert that customer loyalty is the "primary goal" of relationship marketing. Bojei and Alwie (2010) (Malhotra and Dash, 2011;Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). Each dimensions CR are between 0.841 and 0.927, higher than the threshold level of 0.7. Validity refers to the ability of instruments to measure what it supposed to be measured for a construct. The convergent validity is achieved through computation of the AVE for every construct and the acceptable value of AVE is 0.5 or higher (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). In this study, each dimensions AVE are between 0.570 and 0.899, higher than the required standard of 0.5. All AVE above 0.5 which indicates significant degrees. Overall, there is a significant confidence of the survey instrument quality based on the reliability and validity analyses. Intention to purchase extra other service or package from my current service provider.
Intention to recommend my current service provider to others. .810 .786 .797 .770 .869 0.870 0.626

Demographic Profile of the Respondents
From the total of 350 respondents, majority respondents are female (58.3%), followed by male (41.7%). As for the respondents' monthly income, 5.1 percent earned less than RM1500, 13.7 percent of the respondents have an income between RM1500-RM3000. Furthermore, 42.3 percent of the respondents have an income between  Ruswanti and Lectari (2016), Bojei and Alwie (2010), and Jin et al. (2012). The correlation coefficient value is the strongest for the relationship between relationship quality and customer loyalty.

Discussion and Conclusion
The application of SET in this study to investigate the processes of establishing and maintaining reciprocity in social relations between firm and customer has been affirmed. In the process of establishing reciprocity though consumers' evaluation on their benefits and costs, relationship value dimensions of economic value, service value and social value have been found as important antecedents to achieve relationship quality. The findings concluded that consumers good strength of relationship with their service providers. Moreover, customers maintained reciprocity through their loyalty towards the telecommunication service providers. The findings also shown that economic value has significant effect on relationship quality. We can conclude that customers are generally satisfied with their current service providers in providing value for money packages, functional value and pricing of the services. Often consumers relate sales promotional benefits with the economic value they received. Hence, attractive sales promotional activities, such as discounts on packaged service, loyalty programme and free premium items, should be carried out more intensively to build consumer loyalty. In the price sensitivity consumer market in Malaysia, frequent reward and promotional offers would increase consumers' consumption level and loyalty. The service providers should be more focused in their segment-level strategies by offering different service packages to customers of different segments and value. Customers clearly prefer quality services with fair prices in the competitive market in order to meet their satisfaction and expectations. The study also found that service value construct has strong correlation and positively correlated to relationship quality. Consumers acknowledged the excellent service provided by the firms. In view of stiff competitions between the local telecommunication service providers, significant and continuous improvement on service delivery are required through leveraging on social media to provide better customers' enquiries or feedback. Consumers perceived that relational value is not adequately emphasized by the service providers as indicated by the hypothesis H 3 is rejected. The service providers are lacking in customer involvement in service innovation or development and other social activities. The intense competitions and organisational capabilities are the main drivers for innovation. According to Grönroos (2017b), customer should play the role of value creator through the platform of co-creation involving interactive, collaborative and dialogical process, between the service provider and customer. In addition, service innovation should take into account of consumers' changing needs and preferences. The findings revealed that for long-term relationship success, relationship quality should focus on increasing relational value through better engagement with customers in the aspect of service improvement based on customers' feedback, better involvement of customers in social responsibilities activities and prioritising on loyal customers to enhance on service innovation or development. Shared value between the parties could be obtained through higher relational value. Customers closely relate brand of the service provider and with their social value. Brand enhancement initiatives through more effective brand investment strategies could provide maximum exposure of the brand. This study is confined to Malaysian telecommunication industry, and focused on the important four dimensions of relationship value -economic value, service value, relational value and social value. Future studies should explore on other industries and other dimensions of relationship value, such as from the strategic perspective. Future research can also be more specific in their samples by targeting certain segment of consumers based on gender, ethnicity, generation and geographical location to provide more in-depth understanding on the purchasing behaviour of this specific group or segment of consumers. The dependent variables could be extended to other consumer behavioural outcomes, such as consumer satisfaction and consumer repurchase intention.