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International Journal of Consumer Studies ISSN 1470-6423

Is there a relation between religiosity and customer loyalty

in the Chinese context?
Gui Tang and Dong Li
Department of Business Administration, School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, P. R. China

Keywords
Chinese religiosity, supernatural elements,
customer loyalty, ANOVA.
Correspondence
Gui Tang, 2H-314, Science Park, 2 Yi-kuang
Street, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin,
Heilongjiang province, 150001, China.
E-mail: trancy_tanggui@126.com
Dong Li, 2H229, Science Park, 2 Yi-kuang
Street, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin,
Heilongjiang province, 150001, China.
E-mail: sxlidong5858@126.com
Abstract
The prevalent and complicated religiosity inside Chinese consumer makes it interesting
but difficult to investigate the relation between their religiosity and consumer behaviour.
Based on the marketing and psychology background in the Chinese context, this study
explored the relationship between Chinese religiosity and their customer loyalty. Cross-
sectional survey data and statistical methods were used to compare customer loyalty
under different levels of religiosity. The results reveal significant and positive differences
of customer loyalty among consumers with different extent of religiosity in most product
categories. This study puts forward a new perspective for marketers to predict and
develop loyal customers, even to promote marketing segmentation and customer value.

doi: 10.1111/ijcs.12197

Introduction (Cleveland and Chang, 2009); Consumers with higher religios-

Throughout the world, especially in those places where reli-
gions originated, in recent years, the economic benefit from
religious industry is becoming more important for GDP, includ-
ing China. For example, Mountain Wutai, which is one of the
four most well-known Buddhist Mountains in China received
331,000 tourists during the National Day holiday and obtained
28 million RMB as income in 2013. Along with the rapid rise
of revenue, the impact of religion on people is being paid wide
attentions and interest by many social sectors. In fact, many
researchers of management and economy are attracted into
religious area and numerous studies have been conducted.
Accumulating research finds strong support for the hypothesis
that religion or religious belief can affect various aspects of
human society, and is influencing people’s psychology, person-
ality, behaviour and belief systems (Tittle and Welch, 1983;
Schwartz and Huismans, 1995; Inglehart and Baker, 2000;
Sampson, 2000; Tarakeshwar et al., 2003; Saroglou et al.,
2004; Roccas, 2005; Cohen and Hill, 2007), including the con-
suming behaviour (Wilkes et al., 1986; McDaniel and Burnett,
1990; Esso and Dibb, 2004).
Indeed, as an important cultural factor, religious belief has
direct and indirect effect on psychology and behaviour of con-
sumers. In the marketing literatures, many researchers exam-
ined some influences of different types of religious beliefs,
religious affiliations, and levels of religiosity to consumption.
Many interesting results came out. For example, consumers
with different levels of religiosity show varied shopping behav-
iours (Mokhlis, 2006), purchasing patterns (Sood and Nasu,
1995) attitude to subjective well-being and materialism
ity conduct less switching behaviours (McDaniel and Burnett,
1990; La Barbera and G€uRhan, 1997; Fontaine et al., 2005;
Mokhlis, 2006; Saroglou and Dupuis, 2006; Choi, 2010).
Obviously, these findings are very important for corporates to
carry out relevant designing work, to reduce the loss of custom-
ers, even to design loyalty program. Despite these evidence start-
ing to explore this field, more studies are needed to investigate
the relation between religion and marketing (Tarakeshwar et al.,
2003; Choi, 2010), especially the relationship between religion
and customer retention or customer loyalty which are viewed as
a treasure by corporates but with rare studies. Moreover, this task
can be carried out in a more effective way to learn how religios-
ity rather than religion impacts consumers (Conroy and Emerson,
2004). The individual religiosity, the extent someone participates
in a specific religious organization (Delener, 1990; Esso and
Dibb, 2004), is an important factor of social interaction and deci-
sion behaviour. It can also provide valuable opportunities to
investigate how religiosity impacts consumer behaviour in differ-
ent cultures (Wilkes et al., 1986; McDaniel and Burnett, 1990;
Schwartz and Huismans, 1995; Cosgel and Minkler, 2004).
In addition, by contrast of the fact that China contributes to
great influences on the economy and culture all over the world,
but little research involves the relation between religious beliefs
and consumer behaviours in the Chinese context. Perhaps it is
mainly due to the much more complicated religious culture and
background and higher sensitivity of this topic in China than in
western countries. For example, numerous Chinese people with-
out a specific or determined religious affiliation believe in fate,
fengshui or other supernatural factors or phenomenon (Yang,
1961; Xia and Wang, 2011; 2007SLSC), and are even not

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Is there a relation
Table 1 Representative scales
Authors Scale
Feagin (1964) Feagin
Allport and Ross (1967) ROS
Hoge (1972) IRM
Wilkes et al. (1986) Wilkes
Batson et al. (1993) End-dimension
Hill and Hood (1999) H&H
Worthington et al. (2003) RCI-10
willing to talk about their religious attitude in public places. This
special context makes it inappropriate to directly apply the west-
ern achievements to Chinese market. Thus, our study is going to
explore the untouched area and to examine whether the individ-
ual religiosity is related to customer loyalty in China.
Chinese religiosity and customer loyalty
Religiosity
From the perspective of its psychological concept, religiosity is
defined by psychologists as ‘to what extent individual adopts reli-
gious belief in his/her life’ (Allport, 1950); or ‘the degree to
which beliefs in specific religious values and ideals are held and
practiced by an individual’ (Delener, 1990); ‘a belief in God with
the commitment to comply the rules set by God’ (McDaniel and
Burnett, 1990); ‘personal religiosity affords a background against
which the ethical nature of behaviour is interpreted’ (Magill,
1992); ‘the importance religious beliefs play in individual life’
(Hill and Hood, 1999); and ‘religiosity provides a faith commu-
nity with teachings and narratives that . . . encourage morality’
(Emmons, 1999). Although various definitions are given, most
scholars agree that individual religiosity does play an important
role in individual social communication and decision-making,
and provide a valuable opportunity to investigate consuming
behaviours under different cultural background (Wilkes et al.,
1986; McDaniel and Burnett, 1990; Schwartz and Huismans,
1995; Weaver and Agle, 2002; Coşgel and Minkler, 2004).
To measure religiosity, some researchers choose substitute var-
iables in their studies, such as church attendance (Kidwell et al.,
1987; McDaniel and Burnett, 1990; Conroy and Emerson, 2004),
religious orientation (Hegarty and Sims, 1978, 1979), religious
preference (Kidwell et al., 1987), religious commitment (McDa-
niel and Burnett, 1990), the frequency of prayer (Conroy and
Emerson, 2004) and so forth. But deviation even conflict some-
times comes out in these results (Wilkes et al., 1986; Conroy and
Emerson, 2004), due to different substitute variables being used
to measure religiosity. Comparatively, some other scholars con-
struct special scales (Allport and Ross, 1967; Hoge, 1972; McDa-
niel and Burnett, 1990; Hill and Hood, 1999; Worthington et al.,
2003; Cottone et al., 2007; Choi, 2010) to measure religiosity (as
shown and compared in Table 1). Among these scales, the Reli-
gious Orientation Scale (ROS) (Allport and Ross, 1967) is most
widely accepted and applied. And it should be noted that these
scales are designed and developed against Christians.
Religiosity of Chinese consumers
According to the 2007 Spiritual Life Study of Chinese
Residents (2007SLSCR), most Chinese residents (85%) engage
640
G. Tang and D. Li
Items
9 intrinsic & 12 extrinsic
9 intrinsic & 11 extrinsic
10 items
Church attendance, religious value, self-ascribed religiosity
9 intrinsic, 6 extrinsic, 12 doctrinal orthodoxy
126 items
10 items
in paranormal or supernatural activities although most of them
do not participate in or commit to any explicit religious organi-
zation. For instance, it is extremely popular in China that peo-
ple without religious affiliation make a special trip to pray
Gods for money, success in career or examination, recovery
from sickness and so on. Unlike western residents, Chinese
tend to involve religious or folk beliefs in life no matter with
or without religious affiliation. The unclear religious affiliation
of most Chinese residents makes it much more difficult to
investigate the relation between religion and consumer behav-
iour in China than it is in western countries.
Fortunately, Yang (1961), a pioneer to study Chinese folk
beliefs, proposed the theory that religion in Chinese society
is prevalent. There are always temples, ancestral temples,
shrines or places to worship Gods in almost every corner in
the wide China, which just reflects the powerful influence of
religion in the Chinese society (Yang, 1961). Supernatural
elements obviously exist in the religious life of Chinese peo-
ple and are thus crucial factors to define Chinese religion.
Based on the comparisons of institutional and diffused reli-
gions, as well as Chinese and western religions, Yang classi-
fied the various folk beliefs in Chinese society into diffused
religion. That means, despite the lack of an independent
entity or organization or ceremony, a folk belief whose pri-
mary functions are similar to an institutional religion can be
viewed as a religion in China. Lots of specialists and schol-
ars in Chinese religious field show approval of Yang’s theory
(Jin and Fan, 2007; Weller et al., 2010).
On the basis of Yang’s theory, not only devout Buddhists,
Christians and Muslims but also believers of folk beliefs have
religiosity in China. Accordingly, it can be said that in the
Chinese society, all the individuals who believe in supernatu-
ral power may be viewed to possess religiosity. This argu-
ment is consistent with the idea ‘there may be religiosity
deep inside everyone in contemporary China’ (Fan, 2004). In
summary, we define the religiosity of Chinese consumer as
the extent to which he/she apples his/her supernatural beliefs
in life. The “supernatural beliefs” here are generalized to con-
tain the individual belief or practice in all forms of Gods and
supernatural power. According to our definition, once consum-
ers participate in any action involving supernatural elements,
they would be considered with religiosity inside themselves in
this article.
Measurement of Chinese religiosity
Given the important difference of religious context between
China and western countries, the existing scales of religiosity
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G. Tang and D. Li
Table 2 New measures for Chinese religiosity
Item Content
R1 Believe in religion
R2 Believe in supernatural
R3 Paranormal experience
R4 Private religious thought and meditation
R5 Read literature about faith
R6 Pray often
R7 (Religious) Belief is really important
R8 (Religious) Beliefs influence all my dealings in life
R9 (Religious) Beliefs lie behind my whole approach to life
R10 Participate in religious (paranormal) activities
R11 Financial contributions
could not be applied on Chinese consumers directly. Although
some literatures about China start trying to measure Chinese
religiosity, their objects always limit to only Buddhists or
Christians or Muslims (Shen, 2007; Chang, 2008; Shang, 2009;
Xue, 2011). A new instrument that can be applied on various
religious individuals needs to be developed. Based on the
above analysis and the main scales (Allport and Ross, 1967;
Hoge, 1972; Hill and Hood, 1999; Worthington et al., 2003)
and relative research conducted by Chinese scholars (Xia and
Wang, 2011; Li and Zhou, 2012; 2007SLSCR), a new instru-
ment which contains 11 items as shown in Table 2 is devel-
oped to make the measurement of an ordinary Chinese
consumer’s religiosity possible and operable in this paper.
Before the formal survey, this instrument was tested and modi-
fied previously.
Measurement of Chinese customer loyalty
In view of the developed theory of customer loyalty (CL) and
the abundant achievements of its application and measurement
around the world by academics and practitioners, we select
four items to measure Chinese customer loyalty, based on the
cycle theory of customer loyalty (Oliver, 1999; Chen, 2003a,
2003b). They are repeat purchase (CL1) (Zeithaml et al., 1996;
Oliver, 1997; Gronholdt, 2000), cross-buying (CL2) (Zeithaml
et al., 1996; Gronholdt, 2000), recommendation intention
(CL3) (Zeithaml et al., 1996; Griffin, 1995; Gronholdt, 2000)
and price tolerance (CL4) (Fornell et al., 1996; Reichheld
et al., 2000). The four items, which are widely accepted and
applied, have been examined to be effective to measure cus-
tomer’s behavioural loyalty, spiritual loyalty and sustainable
loyalty (Oliver, 1999; Chen, 2003b).
Research design and implementation
Questionnaire
The questionnaire contains three parts. The first part aims to
measure the Chinese religiosity, including 11 items according
to Table 2. The second part is used to measure Chinese cus-
tomer loyalty to multiple products categories which are
monopoly products (MP, such as SIM card, petrol service and
tobacco), fast moving consumer goods (FMCG, like cosmetic,
detergent and food), durable consumer goods (DCG, for
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Is there a relation
References
2007ESVIC; Xia and Wang (2011)
2007SLSCR; Li (2010), Li and Zhou (2012)
2007ESVIC; Xia and Wang (2011)
RCI-10;ROS; H&H (1999)
RCI-10; ROS; H&H (1999)
H&H (1999)
RCI-10; ROS; IRM; H&H (1999)
RCI-10; ROS;IRM; H&H (1999)
RCI-10; ROS; IRM; H&H (1999)
RCI-10; ROS; H&H (1999)
RCI-10; H&H (1999)
instance, household appliances and mobile phone), optional
consumer durables (OCD, for example, car and real estate)
and special consumer goods (SCG, such as luxury goods and
art work). These categories are divided by the value, price
and usage of products in China. The last part of the question-
naire is designed to collect respondents’ demographic charac-
teristics, including gender, age, marriage, income and
education.
Before the preliminary study, three professors from market-
ing, business management and psychology discipline were
invited to review and examine the questionnaire separately.
According to their suggestions, several statements and arrange-
ments were adjusted and corrected. Then a preliminary research
by collecting data from doctoral students, MBA and EMBA in
universities was conducted. The primary purpose of preliminary
research is to test the validation and reliability of the new
instrument. With the 80 valid data, SPSS 20.0 is used in the
data analysis.
In the results, only the CITC of R3 (representing paranormal
experience) of religiosity is 0.297 (<0.5, is suggested to be
deleted by system), all other parameters are acceptable and bet-
ter than the corresponding recommended values (CIT-
C 5 [0.566, 0.801], Cronbach’s a coefficient 5 [0.819, 0.874])
and validity (Cumulative variance= [65.176%, 72.788%]) of all
variables). After deleting R3, all the CITC are above 0.5 and
the instrument shows favourable validity and reliability, which
means it can be applied in the formal survey.
Data collection
The data were obtained by an internet investigation and a field
survey. After an open, voluntary and unlimited online survey
(with rewards) during three months, many questionnaires were
found invalid unfortunately. Some of them were unfinished,
and some were just filled out without seriousness and showed
chaotic logic, some of them were even all the same. Based on
this, random and face to face interviews were started to help
the subjects finishing the questionnaires and enrich the sample
resource. Limited by time and cost, the field survey was only
carried out in the city of Beijing and Harbin in China. Finally
503 valid data were accepted among which 443 data involved
OCD and 425 involved SCG. All the respondents selected were
over the age of 16.
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Is there a relation G. Tang and D. Li

Table 3 One-way ANOVA

Sum of Squares Between

Groups
Dependent Levene Sum of Squares Sum of Squares
variable statistic sig. Between Groups Within Groups F Sig.

MPCL1 0.050 9.962 342.500 7.271 0.001

MPCL2 0.821 10.848 354.476 7.651 0.001
MPCL3 0.228 7.593 392.363 4.838 0.008
MPCL4 0.154 4.579 321.214 3.564 0.029
FMCGCL1 0.040 7.011 317.247 5.525 0.004
FMCGCL2 0.914 9.985 324.095 7.702 0.001
FMCGCL3 0.804 18.290 390.346 11.714 0.000
FMCGCL4 0.262 12.150 368.389 8.239 0.000
DCGCL1 0.018 10.011 269.886 9.273 0.000
DCGCL2 0.335 19.232 286.585 16.777 0.000
DCGCL3 0.759 18.921 286.256 16.524 0.000
DCGCL4 0.100 6.860 357.681 4.795 0.009
OCDCL1 0.019 6.732 263.498 5.621 0.004
OCDCL2 0.297 5.886 283.785 4.563 0.011
OCDCL3 0.062 5.048 278.180 3.993 0.019
OCDCL4 0.099 4.959 319.276 3.417 0.034
SCGCL1* 0.286 1.812 257.633 1.484 0.228
SCGCL2 0.018 5.681 299.340 4.004 0.019
SCGCL3 0.867 12.941 283.944 9.617 0.000
SCGCL4* 0.006 1.875 322.934 1.225 0.295

Data analysis Cluster 3 (with the final cluster centers of 0,0,2,2,2,1,1,1,2,2

Common methods variance
Before analyzing the data, we first conducted the procedural
actions and methodological tests to avoid common method
biases. Besides related explanations provided for predictors in
the questionnaire, Structural
Equation
Modeling (SEM) analysis
was also used to estimate the common methods variance. As a
result, the average variance explained by method factor is only
0.04, which is far below the variance explained by substantive
factor (0.68).
Reliability and validity
The entire reliability of the sample is 0.932, and the KMO is
0.926. Bartlett’s test of sphericity is passed (p 5 0.000) and the
cumulative variance extracted is 65.072%. An acceptable reli-
ability (Cronbach’s a coefficient 5 [0.793, 0.890]) and validity
(Cumulative variance= [62.030%, 68.204%]) of all variables is
obtained.
Cluster analysis
At the first stage, for the convenience to examine the differen-
ces of customer loyalty under different levels of religiosity, the
Quick Cluster method was used to divide all the respondents
into three groups by different extent of religiosity. In the result,
there are 85 respondents in Cluster 1 (the final cluster centers
of R1 to R11 are 1,1,4,3,3,4,3,4,4,4) who show higher religios-
ity and 220 respondents in Cluster 2 (with the final cluster cen-
ters of 0,1,3,2,3,3,2,2,3,3 separately) with moderate religiosity,
and 198 respondents without or with lower religiosity in
separately).
One-way ANOVA
At the second stage, One-way ANOVA was applied to examine
whether the differences of customer loyalty were significant
among the three groups, where CL1 to CL4 of each type of
product were used as dependent variables while the three clus-
ters as factors. Then the post hoc Tests were proceeded on the
significant indicators to test the specific differences among each
cluster. Tables 3 and 4 show the results of One-way ANOVA
and post hoc Tests for every product type in turn. Figures 1–5
describe the tendency of customer loyalty under different extent
of religiosity.
Results and discussions
Religiosity and customer loyalty in MP
industries
According to the results of One-Way ANOVA in Table 3, for
all the four items in the monopoly product industry (SIM card
as example), that is, repeat purchase, cross-buying, recommen-
dation intention and price tolerance, big differences exist in
their sums of squares within and between groups (the three
group presented higher religiosity, moderate religiosity and
lower religiosity respectively). And the p values are 0.001,
0.001, 0.008 and 0.029 respectively, which are lower than the
level of 0.05. These data show different levels of religiosity
have different Chinese customers’ loyalty for MP significantly.
With the x-axis presented different religiosity extent in clus-
ter 1, 2 and 3, and the y-axis represented the means of

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G. Tang and D. Li Is there a relation

Table 4 Multiple comparisons

Mean Difference Sig.

Dependent
Product category variable MD12 MD13 MD23 Sig.12 Sig.13 Sig.23

MP (Bonferroni) MPL1 0.233 0.403* 0.170 0.084 0.001 0.109

MPL2 0.172 0.398* 0.226* 0.330 0.001 0.019
MPL3 0.160 0.339* 0.179 0.472 0.010 0.118
MPL4 0.187 0.277* 0.090 0.205 0.024 0.750
FMCG (Games-Howell) FMCGCL1 0.106 0.306* 0.200* 0.582 0.023 0.027
FMCGCL2 0.148 0.375* 0.227* 0.281 0.001 0.014
FMCGCL3 0.204 0.509* 0.305* 0.144 0.000 0.002
FMCGCL4 0.082 0.372* 0.290* 0.732 0.004 0.002
DCG (Games-Howell) DCGCL1 0.298* 0.410* 0.112 0.006 0.000 0.264
DCGCL2 0.083 0.456* 0.373* 0.669 0.000 0.000
DCGCL3 0.230* 0.527* 0.297* 0.042 0.000 0.000
DCGCL4 0.193 0.334* 0.141 0.197 0.013 0.199
OCD (Games-Howell) OCDCL1 0.273* 0.359* 0.086 0.039 0.007 0.531
OCDCL2 0.194 0.332* 0.138 0.197 0.015 0.224
OCDCL3 0.232 0.311* 0.079 0.083 0.023 0.609
OCDCL4 0.097 0.276 0.179 0.704 0.083 0.106
SCG (Games-Howell) SCGCL2 0.200 0.334* 0.135 0.268 0.034 0.271
SCGCL3 0.306* 0.506* 0.200 0.022 0.000 0.060

Figure 2 Means plots of FMCGCL.

Figure 1 Means plots of MPCL.

customer loyalty items, the means plots in Fig. 1 shows the
fact that higher the religiosity is, higher the customer loyalty
appear to be. Conversely, it also shows the average of repeat
purchase is the highest overall, and the average of recommen-
dation intention is higher than those of cross-buying and price
tolerance for Chinese consumers in monopoly product industry.
This result conforms to the real situation in China. In monopoly
product industries, consumers have few choices in purchase
decision. In other words, the main factors that affecting or
determining their loyalty may not be satisfaction or brand pref-
erence but habit or continuity of product usage.
As the p values of Levene statistic (0.050, 0.821, 0.228 and
0.154) are all higher than 0.05 for the four items, homogeneous
variance within the samples can be assumed and the Bonferroni
multiple comparison method is used in the post hoc Test. The
results in Table 4 show that (i) for repeat purchase, the difference
of the means between cluster 1 and 3 is very apparent
(p13 5 0.001 < 0.05), and the difference between cluster 1 and 2
is significant (p12 5 0.084 < 0.1), while the difference between
cluster 2 and 3 is not so obvious (p23 5 0.109); (ii) in the further
analysis of the item cross-buying, the mean difference is found
distinct between cluster 1 and 3 (p13 5 0.001 < 0.05), and
between cluster 2 and 3 (p23 = 0.019 < 0.05), but not between
cluster 1 and 2 (p12 5 0.330); (iii) to recommendation intention,
only p13 5 0.010 < 0.05, while p12 5 0.472 and p23 = 0.118; (iv)
as well as recommendation intention, only p13 5 0.024 < 0.05 for
price tolerance, while its p12 = 0.205 and p23 = 0.750. In other
words, significant differences are found for all the four items
between the consumers with higher religiosity and the consumers
with lower religiosity, while the differences in other two

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Is there a relation
Figure 3 Means plots of DCGCL.
Figure 4 Means plots of OCDCL.
comparisons (the comparison between consumers with higher
religiosity and consumers with moderate religiosity, and the
comparison between consumers with moderate religiosity and
consumers with lower religiosity) are not all significant.
Religiosity and customer loyalty in FMCG
industries
As the results in Table 3 showed, all the differences of the four
items’ sums of squares within and between groups are great in
the fast moving consumer goods industry (toothpaste was taken
as example in the survey). Additionally with all the significant
probability values of the sums of squares within groups (0.004,
0.001, 0.000 and 0.000), it could be said that different extent of
religiosity could influence the customer loyalty remarkably of
FMCG in China. And this effect is positive in average, as Fig.
2 showed. That is, the higher the religiosity is, the more loyal
the Chinese consumer may be for FMCG. In addition, the
means of recommendation intention are higher than other items
644
G. Tang and D. Li
Figure 5 Means plots of SCGCL.
comparatively, which means Chinese consumers prefer to rec-
ommend their satisfied and favoured products others.
Before the post hoc Test, the p values of Levene statistic are
checked first (which were 0.040, 0.914, 0.804 and 0.262 respec-
tively). Because not all of them are larger than 0.05, the
Games–Howell method without assuming a homogeneous var-
iance of sample is chosen to do the further multiple compari-
son. The analysis results in Table 4 indicate that for all the
four items, the mean differences between groups are conspicu-
ous except the difference between cluster 1 and cluster 2 (all of
the P13 and P23 are significantly, while all of the P12 are bigger
than 0.05). In another word, compared with the consumers with
a lower religiosity, the consumers with a higher religiosity or a
moderate religiosity makes a significant different decision to
repeat purchase, cross-buying, recommendation intention and
price tolerance when choosing fast moving consumer goods.
Religiosity and customer loyalty in DCG
industries
The data in the third and fourth columns in Table 3 show the
huge differences between the sums within groups and the sums
between groups for all items of customer loyalty in durable
consumer goods industries (the current research made telephone
as an example). The data of last column representing the proba-
bility value related to the sums of squares within groups
(0.000, 0.000, 0.000 and 0.009 respectively) are all conspicuous
by lower than 0.05. These two parameters support the obvious
impact exerted by different extent of religiosity on customer
loyalty for DCG. In addition, the means of recommendation
intention are apparently higher than the other items.
The data in the second column of Table 3 indicate that not
all items of customer loyalty passed Levene statistic examina-
tion (the p values were 0.018, 0.335, 0.759 and 0.100). Thus
Games–Howell method was selected to proceed the post hoc
Test as well as the test in chapter 3.4.2. The multiple compari-
son analysis came to the results that only four mean differences
are not significant among the all 12 comparisons, which are (i)
the p23 (0.264) of repeat purchase, (ii) the p12 (0.669) of cross-
buying, (iii) the p12 (0.197) and the p23 (0.199) of price
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G. Tang and D. Li
tolerance. Taking repeat purchase as example, these results sug-
gest that Chinese consumers with a higher religiosity are very
different in repeat purchase of durable consumer goods from
the consumers with a moderate religiosity and the consumers
with a lower religiosity.
Religiosity and customer loyalty in OCD
industries
In the optional consumer durable industries, taking cars as an
example, different extent religiosity indicates distinct positive
influences on customer loyalty (the data in the third, fourth and
sixth columns in Table 3 suggest the influences are distinct,
while the trends of the lines in Fig. 4 demonstrate their positive
relations.). Figure 4 also illustrates that the average of recom-
mendation intention and cross-buying are higher than the aver-
age of repeat purchase and price tolerance. Usually, the higher
cost and longer service life of optional consumer goods (like a
car) in China cost consumers’ much more consideration and
time in their purchase decision, and also restrict the purchase
frequency. Therefore, recommendation intention and cross-
buying always make a better performance in the customer loy-
alty program.
In the post hoc Test, Games–Howell method is chosen again
to do the multiple comparisons, and its analysis results listed in
Table 4 indicates that for OCD, (i) compared with the consum-
ers with higher religiosity, consumers with moderate religiosity
and consumers with lower religiosity behaved diversely evi-
dently in repeat purchase (p12 5 0.039, p13 5 0.007); (ii)there is
conspicuous discrepancy in consumers’ behaviour of cross-
buying between cluster 1 (consumers with higher religiosity)
and cluster 3(consumers with lower religiosity) (p13 5 0.015);
(iii) similarly as cross-buying, only significant disparity is
found between cluster 1 and cluster 3 (p13 5 0.023) for the
item recommendation intention; and (iv) all the mean differen-
ces are not very outstanding (p12 5 0.704, p13 5 0.083,
p23 5 0.106).
Religiosity and customer loyalty in SCG
industries
According to Table 3, in the special consumer goods industries
(luxury watch was taken as an example in the survey), the big
gaps exist among sums of squares within and between groups
for all the four items, but only two p values are smaller than
0.05, which are cross-buying and recommendation intention,
being influenced evidently by different degree of religiosity.
Despite two of the probability values turned insignificant, the
lines in Fig. 5 indicate the fact that the lower the religiosity is,
the smaller the means value of CL1 to CL4 appear to be. As
same as the above industries, the average of recommendation
intention here is still the highest in special consumer goods
industry.
Due to the insignificant results of repeat purchase and price
tolerance at the first stage, the post hoc Test was only con-
ducted for cross-buying and recommendation intention (the p
values of their Levene statistic are 0.018 and 0.867) with the
Games–Howell multiple comparison method. As what is stated
in Table 4, customers’ choices for cross-buying in the cluster
with higher religiosity are significantly different from those in
International Journal of Consumer Studies 39 (2015) 639–647
C 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
V
Is there a relation
the cluster with lower religiosity (p13 5 0.034 < 0.05), albeit
other differences among clusters are not so obvious (the
p12 5 0.268, and the p23 5 0.271). For the recommendation
intention, we find p12 5 0.022 < 0.05, p13 5 0.000<0.05,
p12 5 0.060 < 0.1, which means customers with different level
of religiosity vary a lot in recommendation intention when pur-
chasing special consumer goods.
It should be noted that the insignificant impacts of religiosity
to repeat purchase and price tolerance may because of the spe-
cial purchase motivation of Chinese consumers. For example,
an increasingly popular phenomenon in recent China is when
new couples preparing their weddings, it is the groom’s duty to
buy wedding rings while the bride to buy luxury watches for
exchange. From our interviews, most of the respondents claim
little chance or no probability to purchase a luxury watch
again, while some other respondents show their willing to buy
only one piece of luxury watch in future because they do not
have got one yet. Under such circumstances, there is nothing to
do with the function, usage, price or meaning of the product
itself in purchase decision. When the luxury watch is viewed as
a necessity for one’s status or value, the recommendation and
attitude even approval from other people will be critical for
consumer’s choice in the Chinese society. This special phenom-
enon could be discussed in future research.
Conclusion
In this research, we examine whether there is a relationship
between individual religiosity and his/her customer loyalty in
the Chinese context, which is a totally new attempt in academic
area. Based on the literature review of the definition and mea-
surement of consumer religiosity, combining the analysis of
Chinese religion (mainly with the reference of Yang’s theory),
we propose an operational definition for Chinese religiosity and
develop a new instrument to measure it. In the survey (as the
final cluster center shows), many participants give low scores
to R1 (believe in religion) and R2 (believe in supernatural
power) in all three clusters, but most respondents, even those
who are divided into Cluster 3, give relatively higher scores to
R6 (pray often), R10 (Participate in religious activities) and
R11 (Financial contributions). This result provides data evi-
dence for Yang’s theory which claims that religion or religious
belief is prevalent in China, and strong support for our theoreti-
cal basis as well. Despite only an exploratory research this
paper conducted, the operability of the present study just shows
a huge possibility to apply and expand Yang’s theory in other
studies of marketing, psychology, management and economy
areas and soforth.
With statistical analysis, in all product areas (i.e., monopoly
product, fast moving consumer goods, durable consumer goods,
optional consumer durables) except special consumer goods in
China, significant differences of customer loyalty intention
among consumers with different level of religiosity are found,
and all the four measurement indicators show obvious differen-
ces existing under different levels of religiosity (higher, moder-
ate, lower). In the special consuming product industries, the
evaluation of cross-buying and recommendation intention also
show distinct diversity in different levels of religiosity, but
repeat purchase and price tolerance do not.
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Is there a relation
In the further and more concrete comparisons of differences
between groups, respondents from cluster 1 (the higher religios-
ity group) show apparent discrepancy in their intention of
repeat purchase, cross-buying, recommendation and price toler-
ance than the respondents from cluster 3 (the lower religiosity
group), in all product categories except for the special con-
sumer goods. Between cluster 2 (the group with moderate reli-
giosity) and cluster 3, significant variety is only found in the
repeat purchase and recommendation intention for durable con-
sumer goods, the repeat purchase for optional consumer dura-
bles, and the recommendation intention for special consumer
goods. In the analysis results, cross-buying for monopoly prod-
ucts, recommendation intention for durable consumer goods
and all of the four indexes also show disparity between cluster
1 and cluster 2.
The five figures, demonstrating the means plots of loyalty
measures in three clusters, show a generally positive relation
between customer loyalty and religiosity. In other words, con-
sumers with higher religiosity have a higher intention of cus-
tomer loyalty in China.
In addition, the mean values of recommendation intention
are higher than the other three indices, no matter within what
level of individual religiosity. This result indicates that Chinese
consumers concern more about word-of-mouth and are more
willing to introduce and recommend the products or brands
they used. This finding is not only consistent with the “guanxi”
theory of eastern countries, but also provide new evidence for
previous research like Choi et al. (2013) and soforth. Moreover,
the results in this article are thought to be useful and helpful
for researchers to reconsider the effect of religiosity and con-
duct new studies in different areas. For instance, the relation
between one’s religiosity and its social network, consumption,
behavioural style and soforth.
Overall, it is interesting to come to the above findings,
because they do not only answer the topic question (whether
customers with different level of religiosity vary in loyalty
intention), but also support the meaning of this research and
provide a new perspective for further studies. Besides, inspira-
tions of management for corporates which want to enter into or
expand the Chinese market were thus supplied. For example,
marketers could increase new segmentation dimension in Chi-
nese market; or consider special designing elements when
developing new products or services for Chinese customer; or
utilize the preference of Chinese customers on word-of-mouth
in brand marketing plan and market promotion and soforth.
Despite the contributions of this paper, there were still sev-
eral limitations in it. First, this study only exposes the generally
positive relation between the religiosity of Chinese consumers
and their customer loyalty in the first step. Much more research
and deeper studies need to be conducted to examine how and
what extent the religiosity impacts individual loyalty. Thus,
concrete and targeted marketing strategies and policies should
be provided for corporates. Second, compared with most of
existing literatures, especially the research about China, this
study although examines a more diversified demographic sam-
ple rather than a single student sample, there are still limita-
tions in its scope. Because 377 participants in this survey are
online respondents, most of them are students and office work-
ers who can contact internet more frequently. Additionally, in
646
G. Tang and D. Li
the vast China, the varied social customs and habits among dif-
ferent parts of China definitely affect the religiosity and con-
suming behaviours of customers. Thus the size and scope of
the sample should be enlarged or concentrated in specific area
in further research to reduce or avoid estimate errors. Indeed,
in contemporary Chinese society, religion is still a sensitive
topic because of political reasons and the long-term effect Chi-
nese residents received, which makes the data collection and
empirical research much more difficult than western countries.
Therefore, better methods and skills needs to be found or
developed in the future to dig out the truly deep consideration
about (religious) belief inside Chinese consumers, especially
those traditional and conservative people, to help researchers
learn the relation between Chinese religiosity and marketing
variables better. Finally, it needs to be noted that considering
the length of this paper and using some research as references
(such as Huang et al., 2004; Choi et al., 2013; and soforth), the
interaction effect of demographic characteristics and personal
religiosity is not tested in this article, but ignoring the impact
of demographics may cause bias to our results and need to be
concerned in further studies.
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