Over the past several years, the management approach

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1 Thomas W. Gruen, John O. Summers, & Frank Acito Relationship Marketing Activities, Commitment, and Membership Behaviors in Professional Associations The authors conceptualize and empirically examine professional associations relationship-building efforts (core services performance, rewards for contributions, dissemination of organizational knowledge, member interdependence enhancement activities, and reliance on external membership requirements) that are theorized to enhance their membership s commitment to the relationship as well as the membership s relationship behaviors. Three components of commitment affective, continuance, and normative are theorized to mediate differentially the correlation between the associations relationship-building efforts and their members relationship behaviors (membership retention, exchange-based participation, and cooperatively based coproduction). Confirmatory factor analysis validates the commitment measures, and structural equations analysis indicates that normative and affective commitment partially mediate the effects of selected relationship-building efforts on coproduction and member participation. Core services performance was the only construct in the model found to affect member retention. Relationship management is a special field all its own. It is as important in preserving and enhancing the intangible asset commonly known as goodwill as is the management of hard assets. The fact that it is probably harder to do is that much more reason that hard effort be expended to do it. Theodore Levitt, The Marketing Imagination Over the past several years, the management approach that views customer relationships as key assets of the organization has gained increased prominence in the priorities and practices of many for-profit and not-forprofit organizations. This customer asset management approach has been referred to as relationship marketing, and the focus of most research studies has been the relationships between channel members (Brown, Lusch, and Nicholson 1995; Kumar, Scheer, and Steenkamp 1995b; Morgan and Hunt 1994). However, the perspective that customers are an asset to be managed is applicable to a broad range of customer relationships. One type that is receiving increased research attention is the area of membership relationships (Bhattacharya 1998; Bhattacharya, Rao, and Glynn 1995). Membership relationships have characteristics that are distinctly different from those in the marketing channels Thomas Gruen is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Goizueta Business School, Emory University. John O. Summers and Frank Acito are Professors of Marketing, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. The authors thank Scott MacKenzie and Dennis Organ for their input throughout the research. This work has benefited greatly from the constructive contributions of Jag Sheth and the two anonymous JM reviewers. The authors gratefully acknowledge Jill Marie Eckl and the National Association of Life Underwriters for their cooperation and financial support of the study. 34 / Journal of Marketing, July 2000 area. For example, channels studies typically focus on a single key account or a small number of accounts, but membership relationships generally involve the management of hundreds and often thousands of customers. Therefore, managers of channel relationships are greatly concerned about the reasons and likelihood that a single customer might defect, because the consequences of that defection are great. Alternatively, membership managers are interested in aggregate rates of the members retention, because individual membership lapses are inevitable, and a single membership loss is relatively inconsequential. Furthermore, channels relationships pertain to relationship issues of trust (Doney and Cannon 1997), opportunistic behaviors (John 1984), transaction-specific assets (Heide and John 1988), commitments or pledges to the channel partner (Anderson and Weitz 1992), and relative power and dependence (Anderson and Narus 1990) of the partners. In membership relationships, managers are interested in collective behaviors of members, such as membership retention rates, the degree the membership participates in and uses the membership benefits, and coproduction or volunteering behaviors. In addition, managers are interested in the psychological bonds of the membership, such as commitment and identification (Bhattacharya, Rao, and Glynn 1995; Sheth and Parvatiyar 1995). Despite the plethora of membership programs developed by organizations and the pervasiveness of memberships acquired and maintained by individuals, there has been little academic study surrounding the management of memberships. In one study, Bhattacharya, Rao, and Glynn (1995) survey art museum members and find that the major correlates of a member s organizational identification are the prestige associated with membership in the museum and the length of membership. Bhattacharya (1998) also finds that Journal of Marketing Vol. 64 (July 2000), 34 49

2 membership length, donating, and involvement in related interest groups reduce the likelihood of lapsing. However, to our knowledge, no published study has examined how membership organizations can use marketing actions directly under their control to affect the commitment of their membership and the membership s collective relational behaviors. This is a critical gap in the literature, because membership organizations must make choices about how they allocate their marketing resources. One organization may focus directly on retention efforts, whereas another may seek to cultivate higher levels of commitment among its members. Still another choice is to focus marketing efforts on working through intermediaries that have direct contact with and influence over the membership base (e.g., employers of those targeted for membership). It is the purpose of this study to develop and test a model that explains how organizations use a set of relationship marketing activities to elicit the desired commitment and relationship behaviors from their membership. We do not intend to explain the behavior of individual members, but rather we provide the perspective of managing the membership as a whole. Although there are multiple forms of memberships and membership organizations, professional associations provide an interesting and important context for the development and testing of theories of membership relationships. These relationships are characterized by a formalized agreement that includes regular dues payments and an annual membership renewal. Members choose their level of participation and consumption of the benefits offered by the association. Moreover, there are substantial opportunities for coproduction, as associations depend on the efforts of members to create and deliver much of the value of the benefits enjoyed by their members. In the United States alone, there are more than 23,000 national and 64,000 state, local, and regional associations that represent every industry, profession, cause, and interest. Seven of ten adult Americans belong to at least one association, and one of four belongs to four or more associations (American Society of Association Executives 1994). To make comparisons across organizations, we studied 150 regional chapters of the National Association of Life Underwriters (NALU). We began with exploratory work with the chapter leaders and members for model development; then conducted a survey of the chapter presidents, a survey of the members within each chapter, and integration of archival data on chapter retention rates; and finally used these data to test the proposed model empirically. One key objective of this study is to identify a set of relationship marketing activities that is appropriate in managing membership relationships. In the relationship marketing literature, the commitment trust framework developed by Morgan and Hunt (1994) provides a general model for relationship marketing in business-to-business relationships, but this channel member framework does not explicitly model the variables that management can directly control when managing membership relationships. A comprehensive conceptual model of relationship marketing in membership management situations would enhance the existing literature. A second key issue that needs further clarification in relationship marketing is the multicomponent nature of commitment, a concept that has been central in the study of relationship marketing (Gundlach, Achrol, and Mentzer 1995; Morgan and Hunt 1994). Commitment is generally viewed as the strength of the relational ties among channel members (Kim and Frazier 1997), and research has examined its components and measurement (Gundlach, Achrol, and Mentzer 1995; Kim and Frazier 1997), as well as its consequences and antecedents (Anderson and Weitz 1992; Brown, Lusch, and Nicholson 1995; Morgan and Hunt 1994). Organizational behavior research has extensively studied the impact of organizational commitment on performance and turnover (Allen and Meyer 1990; Mowday, Porter, and Steers 1982; Williams and Hazer 1986). The link of organizational commitment with employee retention provides the analog for the study of membership commitment and membership retention. Organizational behavior studies commonly treat commitment as having multiple components (Allen and Meyer 1990); however, no published research has examined the multiple component nature of commitment in membership relationships. Among the behaviors of interest to marketers, the concept of customer retention has been an important focus of relationship marketing (Bhattacharya, Rao, and Glynn 1995; Reichheld and Sasser 1990). However, with the exceptions of Bhattacharya (1998) and Bolton (1998), this research has examined intentions to remain in the relationship (Garbarino and Johnson 1999; Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman 1996). Although studies that examine commitment and intentions to remain in the relationship generally find a strong positive link (Brown and Peterson 1993), recent empirical research examining the relationship between commitment and actual employee retention has produced mixed results (MacKenzie, Podsakoff, and Ahearne 1998). A key need in relationship marketing research is to examine actual retention behavior as called for in recent studies (Rust and Zahorik 1993; Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman 1996). Another important and underresearched phenomenon in relationship marketing is customer coproduction (Sheth and Parvatiyar 1995). In long-term relationships, customers go beyond consuming the product of the organization; they become coproducers who participate in the value creation of the selling organization. Gummeson (1987) describes another aspect of customer coproduction that occurs in situations in which the relationships among the customers play an important role in the value creation. Relationships among customers as coproducers with other customers have received only minimal research attention. Conceptual Framework To develop the conceptual model, we combined extensive exploratory research with existing research in services marketing, relationship marketing, and organizational behavior. We used interviews and focus groups with association managers to identify the various marketing actions that associations use in managing relationships with their memberships, to determine the ways that members are committed to the organization, and to delineate the coproduction and participation activities of the membership. In Figure 1, we show the proposed components and relationships. The mediating structure of the model is common to studies in relationship marketing (e.g., Brown, Lusch, and Nicholson 1995; Morgan and Hunt 1994), and we examine the mediating role of commitment, incorporating and Professional Associations / 35

3 FIGURE 1 Original Model with All Hypothesized Paths Reliance on external membership requirements H 10 Retention H 9 H 8a Normative commitment H 3 Dissemination of organizational knowledge H 2a H 1a H 8b Continuance commitment H 7b Enhancement of member interdependence H 7a H 2b Affective commitment H 1b Core services performance H 4a Participation H 5b H 4b H 1c Recognition H 5a H 6 Coproduction Notes: All hypothesized paths are positive except external membership requirements to affective commitment, which is negative. adapting Allen and Meyer s (1990) three-dimensional model of commitment from organizational behavior. Membership Behaviors: Retention, Participation, and Coproduction Figure 1 shows three general categories of membership behaviors that indicate relationship marketing success in membership markets: retention, participation, and coproduction. This set of three outcomes is consistent with the outcomes of commitment in previous relationship marketing research (Gruen 1995; Morgan and Hunt 1994) and is substantiated in the exploratory research with association executives. The retention rate is defined as the percentage of the membership that renews its membership from one membership year to the following membership year. Because of its intuitive appeal, the issue of customer churn (the inverse of customer retention) has been a subject of interest to relationship marketers. Examples include studies of membership lapsing behavior (Bhattacharya 1998), expectation of continuity (Kumar, Scheer, and Steenkamp 1995a), duration with continuous service providers (Bolton 1998), and customer defections (Reichheld and Sasser 1990). In our exploratory research, we find that member retention is a key measure of the association s performance. Another relationship marketing goal is to enhance the quality of the membership. The first aspect of membership quality is member participation (referred to henceforth as participation ), and this is defined as the extent to which the membership consumes the association s services. Exploratory research reveals that some associations have a large percentage of members that operate on the fringe, whereas other associations have proportionately more members who heavily consume benefits that are prepaid as part of dues (such as use of a Web site, reading the trade magazine, and attendance at local meetings) as well as purchasing additional products and services (such as journal subscriptions and educational programming). Member participation refers to the average or per capita usage of these benefits. Sheth and Parvatiyar (1995) describe a second aspect of the quality of the membership, termed coproduction, which 36 / Journal of Marketing, July 2000

4 is defined as the extent to which the membership is involved in the production of the association s products, services, and/or marketing. Coproduction is analogous to organizational citizenship behaviors (i.e., helpful, constructive behaviors exhibited by employees that are valued or appreciated by the organization but not part of the employee s job description; Organ 1988), in that both represent voluntary behaviors that benefit the organization. Services marketing researchers have also emphasized the importance of the coproducing role of the customer surrounding the actual service encounter (Bowen 1986; Kelly, Donnelly, and Skinner 1990). Exploratory interviews with association executives and members identify many types of coproduction behaviors that are critical to the effectiveness of their associations, such as being involved in leadership; participating in the organization s public relations efforts; promoting the organization by word of mouth; making suggestions for improving products, services, and/or processes; policing opportunistic behaviors of other members; proactively communicating anticipated problems (e.g., making a cancellation even when there is no contractual penalty); being flexible when the organization requires it (such as changing schedules); and participating in research. Three Types of Membership Commitment Although marketers ultimately are interested in the explicit behaviors of the membership, psychological states (e.g., commitment) can be viewed as mechanisms through which behavioral outcomes are maintained (Wilson and Mummalaneni 1986). Wiener (1982, p. 419) describes the role of commitment as an intervening process, mediating between certain antecedents and behavioral outcomes, commitment can be viewed as a motivational phenomenon. As we illustrate in Figure 1, this study uses a three-component conceptualization of commitment continuance, normative, and affective based on theoretical and empirical work in organizational behavior (Allen and Meyer 1990; Mathieu and Zajac 1990; Meyer et al. 1989). In marketing, some studies have taken a unidimensional approach to the commitment construct (e.g., Bettencourt 1997; MacKenzie, Podsakoff, and Ahearne 1998; Morgan and Hunt 1994), whereas others have treated it as a multidimensional construct (e.g., Brown, Lusch, and Nicholson 1995; Gundlach, Achrol, and Mentzer 1995; Kim and Frazier 1997; Kumar, Scheer, and Steenkamp 1995b). The general definition of membership commitment is the degree of the membership s psychological attachment to the association. We define continuance commitment, which is based on the self-interest stake in a relationship (Gundlach, Achrol, and Mentzer 1995; Wiener 1982), as the degree to which the membership is psychologically bonded to the organization on the basis of the perceived costs (economic, social, and status related) associated with leaving the organization. In contrast, we define normative commitment, which derives from a person s sense of moral obligation toward the organization (Allen and Meyer 1990), as the degree to which the membership is psychologically bonded to the organization on the basis of the perceived moral obligation to maintain the relationship with the organization. Finally, we define affective commitment, which is focused on a positive emotional attachment (Allen and Meyer 1990), as the degree to which the membership is psychologically bonded to the organization on the basis of how favorable it feels about the organization. Linking commitment with the behavioral outcomes.organizational behavior research provides support for a positive relationship among the three dimensions of commitment and retention (Allen and Meyer 1990). Mowday, Porter, and Steers (1982) link their affective view of commitment with a member s involvement in the organization. Therefore, higher levels of affective commitment are hypothesized to lead to higher levels of participation. Affective commitment is also hypothesized to affect coproduction. Mowday, Porter, and Steers (1982) observe that people who are committed to the organization are willing to give something of themselves to promote the organization s well-being. MacKenzie, Podsakoff, and Ahearne (1998) find a positive impact of commitment on extra-role salesperson behaviors (organizational citizenship behaviors), which lends empirical support for this hypothesis. The membership s prepayment of dues represents an initial economic investment in the relationship. As such, it creates a potency that motivates the members to recover their investment (Ferguson and Brown 1991; Houston and Gassenheimer 1987); therefore, a link between continuance commitment and participation is hypothesized. As this potency is based on the sense of receiving a fair exchange, it should not be expected to extend to coproduction behaviors, and no link between continuance commitment and coproduction is hypothesized. The linkage of normative commitment to participation and coproduction is somewhat uncertain, and there is little research available for guidance on this issue. One view would be that the same sense of obligation that motivates retention behavior would likely carry over and result in higher levels of participation and coproduction behavior. For example, in organizational behavior research, a study of nurses finds normative commitment to their occupation (but not their particular organization) to correlate positively with involvement in professional activities (Meyer, Allen, and Smith 1993). An alternative view deduced from Meyer and Allen (1991) asserts that the nature of the obligation will be fulfilled through the crucial act of joining and/or remaining faithful to the organization; that is, the obligation does not extend to additional acts. In the absence of a compelling rationale that normative commitment should extend past the obligation of membership itself, no paths linking normative commitment to participation or coproduction are hypothesized. In summary, a different set of outcomes is proposed for each of the three types of commitment to membership behaviors. These are illustrated in Figure 1 and stated as the following hypotheses: H 1 : The level of the membership s affective commitment has a positive effect on (a) membership retention, (b) participation, and (c) coproduction. H 2 : The level of the membership s continuance commitment has a positive effect on (a) membership retention and (b) participation. H 3 : The level of the membership s normative commitment has a positive effect on membership retention. Professional Associations / 37

5 Relationship Management Activities Core services performance. A foundation for any longterm buyer seller relationship is the ability of the supplying firm to deliver fundamental value to the customer. As Parasuraman, Berry, and Zeithaml (1991, p. 44) observe, Firms that do not provide the service core that customers are buying a correctly repaired automobile, for example fail their customers in the most direct way. Core services performance is defined here as the extent of the quantity and quality of the planning and delivery of the association s primary services. Using relational exchange theory as a guide, a positive effect of core services performance on affective commitment is predicated on the notion that affective commitment is built on a series of satisfactory exchanges (Wilson and Mummalaneni 1986). Membership organizations that consistently deliver a larger quantity of quality programs create more opportunities to develop stronger affective attachment of the membership than those organizations that offer a smaller quantity. In general, although core service performance may not be a necessary condition for affective commitment in all membership situations (e.g., if members have an intrinsic love for the ballet or symphony, they may be affectively attached to the local ballet company or symphony even if the performance is not excellent), increased core services performance should lead to an increase in affective commitment. Core services performance should also positively affect participation. Exchange theory predicts that prepayment of dues will create a potency that will drive members to use services to receive an equitable exchange (Ferguson and Brown 1991; Houston and Gassenheimer 1987). Core services performance is not expected to have a substantial effect on the other forms of commitment or behaviors. Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman s (1996) research on individual customer relationships suggests a positive, direct effect of core services performance on intentions to remain, and Bolton (1998) finds that the duration of the relationship with individual cellular customers was directly dependent on their satisfaction. However, Morgan and Hunt s (1994) study of business-to-business relationships indicates that commitment will fully mediate the effects of core services performance on retention. Similarly, Garbarino and Johnson (1999) find that commitment plays a mediating role in future intentions of high relational (membership) customers. Thus, as shown in Figure 1, we model affective commitment as mediating the effects of core services performance on retention and present the following hypothesis: H 4 : The level of the association s core services performance has a positive effect on its membership s (a) affective commitment and (b) participation. Recognition for contributions. In business-to-business marketing, the benefits received by the customer from coproduction activities may be found in customization of the products/services to suit the customer s needs better, lower prices, and/or improved delivery (Sheth and Parvatiyar 1995). However, in membership situations, the benefits of coproduction or comarketing may be less direct, and much of the motivation is intrinsic (Deci 1975) or, when identification plays a strong role, occurs through the continuity with or enhancement of self-esteem (Dutton, Dukerich, and Harquail 1994). Managers of membership relationships must consider the benefits that coproducing customers receive from their efforts and what can be done extrinsically to enhance the perceived value of these benefits. In exploratory interviews with association officials, recognition was identified as the fundamental extrinsic reward for members contributions, and the association can easily manipulate recognition. We define recognition for contributions as the extent to which the association demonstrates to the coproducing members that it values their contributions. We expect recognition for contributions to have a positive effect on coproduction. MacKenzie, Podsakoff, and Ahearne (1998) report that role ambiguity leads to lower levels of extra-role performance (organizational citizenship behaviors). Because the value derived from extra-role (coproduction) behaviors is by nature ambiguous, recognition places an unambiguous valuation on the membership s coproduction behaviors. Recognition for contributions should also have positive, direct effects on the affective commitment, given the findings that people tend to feel more favorable toward individuals and organizations that provide positive feedback (Williams and Hazer 1986). Recognition for contributions reflects the organization s commitment to its contributing members. In this regard, empirical support for recognition s expected link with affective commitment can be found in organizational behavior research, such as Shore and Tetrick s (1991) work, which demonstrates that perceived organizational support (i.e., an organization s perceived commitment to its employees) is positively related to its employees affective commitment. Finally, recognition is expected to have a positive effect on continuance commitment, because recognition for contributions increases the contributing members status within the group or organization and provides a source of continuous positive feedback. When the members identify with the organization, recognition explicitly reinforces the continuity of their self-concept with the organization (Dutton, Dukerich, and Harquail 1994). Termination of membership results in losing the source of value. H 5 : An association s level of recognition for contributions has a positive effect on its membership s (a) affective and (b) continuance commitment. H 6 : An association s level of recognition for contributions has a positive, direct effect on its membership s coproduction behaviors. We define member interdependence enhancement as the extent to which the organization provides its members with the motivation, opportunity, and ability to exchange value with one another. Marketers that are interested in building relationships with their customers must address the ways they help their customers build productive relationships among themselves (i.e., enhancing the interdependence among its customers). For example, Winer and colleagues (1997) note the importance of customer interaction in the formation of brand-based Internet communities, and Grove and Fisk (1997) find that customers interactions during periods of waiting in lines have an influence on the level of satisfaction. Interdependence among members is becoming increasingly managerially relevant in the rapidly expanding 38 / Journal of Marketing, July 2000

6 world of online services (e.g., America Online, Yahoo), because the interactive networks of special interests and bulletin boards are among the more frequently used services. These networks depend on interaction among the users/members. With regard to associations, research conducted by the NALU reveals that one of the consistently highest-rated benefits of being a member of the association was the ability to network with other members. The task for the relationship marketer is to set up the best systems, environment, and supportive personnel to facilitate this process. Member interdependence enhancement is hypothesized to affect directly two forms of commitment: continuance and normative. Enhancing the interdependence among the membership is expected to have a positive effect on continuance commitment, because it raises the cost of exiting the relationship with the organization of interest. In addition to losing the benefits directly controlled by the organization, members no longer receive the considerable advantages (e.g., job-related information, professional contacts) they derive from their relationships with others from the cohort or in-group (Ashforth and Mael 1989). Enhancing members interdependence is expected to affect normative commitment positively for two reasons. First, increasing these interdependencies results in these members developing obligations to others in the group. Second, through their interactions with others, they develop a sense of belonging. Therefore, these members develop an increased belief that they ought to remain in the organization so that they will not abandon the other members. H 7 : The extent to which an association enhances the level of interdependence among its members has a positive, direct effect on its membership s (a) continuance and (b) normative commitment. Dissemination of organizational knowledge. Increasing its knowledge of the customer, or, as is popularly stated, getting close to the customer, is a key ingredient in an organization s attempts to provide value to its customers. A complementary but often overlooked task of relationship marketing involves getting the customer closer to the organization. The process of organizational socialization the way members adapt to and come to appreciate the values, norms, and behavior patterns of an organization captures the essence of this task (Kelly, Skinner, and Donnelly 1992). Dissemination of organizational knowledge is a means of enhancing the socialization of the members. It is defined as the extent of the distribution of information to the membership about the organization s goals and values; culture; and politics, processes, and personnel three content areas that Chao and colleagues (1994) identify as central to the socialization of organizational members. Although comprehension of the organization s goals and values helps link the membership to the mission of the organization as a whole, knowledge of the culture of the organization provides guidelines to appropriate behaviors expected of the membership. Members awareness of the politics, processes, and personnel of the organization helps members operate more efficiently in the relationship. Organizational behavior research has theorized (though has not empirically tested) that organizational knowledge will have a positive effect on members normative commitment (Hackett, Bycio, and Hausdorf 1994). As the members better understand the linkages of the goals and values of the organization and how they affect the industry from which the members derive their living, their sense of normative commitment will be enhanced because of the interdependent nature of the goals. Similarly, Allen and Meyer (1990) propose that the antecedents of affective commitment are based on experiences that fulfill members psychological needs to feel comfortable in the organization and competent in the roles they play in the organization. We find in exploratory interviews that a lack of relevant information keeps members on the fringe of the group. Thus, as shown in Figure 1, we offer the following hypothesis: H 8 : The level of an association s dissemination of organizational knowledge has a positive, direct effect on its membership s (a) normative and (b) affective commitment. Reliance on external membership requirements. Relationships operate in a larger social context that creates explicit and implicit constraints and pressures on the relationship. Reliance on external membership requirements is defined as the extent to which the association attempts to persuade an intermediary (e.g., an employer) to use its authority to encourage or require the individuals under its authority (e.g., employees) to join and maintain their membership. Exploratory research for this study finds that some insurance agencies require their agents to join and maintain membership with their local chapter, whereas others only encourage membership. The NALU also offers (through the local chapters) the 100% Agency Award to agencies whose agents are all members. Regardless of the motivation of the agency to impose such a requirement, the key issue for this study is that associations make strategic choices by determining how much emphasis to place (or resources to allocate) on marketing directly to the membership, relative to the amount of marketing effort directed at intermediaries. The marketing channels concept of contact efficiency posits that the intermediary (insurance agency) creates value for the association through its ability to contact several members, which thereby allows the association to concentrate its marketing effort on a small number of intermediaries (Pelton, Strutton, and Lumpkin 1997). Chapters that rely on external membership requirements, an efficient use of marketing resources, should have higher retention rates than chapters that use less efficient means of retention. However, there is likely to be a negative side effect of this strategy if the members feel coerced into the membership and harbor negative feelings toward the agency, the association, or both (Deci 1975). Furthermore, the third-party agency effectively functions as a mediator that can impede the relational bond between the association and the membership. Therefore, we expect associations that use external requirements to have a membership with a lower overall level of affective commitment to the association. H 9 : The level of the association s reliance on external membership requirements has a negative effect on the level of the affective commitment of the membership. H 10 : The level of the association s reliance on external membership requirements has a positive effect on its membership retention rate. Professional Associations / 39

7 Research Methodology The NALU, a federation of more than 900 local chapters with a total membership of more than 100,000 life insurance sales agents, provided the context for the test of the theoretical model. The data were collected from three sources: (1) a survey of chapter presidents, (2) a survey of the membership of the corresponding chapters, and (3) archival data on these chapters from the NALU. The use of multiple sources helps avoid the problems associated with the use of singlesource self-report data (Podsakoff and Organ 1986). The presidents of all 440 chapters (of the total 900) that had a minimum of 60 members were sent questionnaires that focused on collecting measures of those variables that are directly affected by the association s leadership (e.g., core service performance, recognition for contributions). Of these presidents, 240 responded, for a response rate of 55%. Because of cost constraints, 150 of these reporting chapters were randomly selected for inclusion in the membership phase of the study that involved a sample of 40 members per chapter (i.e., a total of 6000 members). The membership survey was primarily used to collect data on the members affective, continuance, and normative commitment to their chapters. A total of 2545 usable responses was received, for a response rate of 42%, and the number of responses for each chapter ranged from 7 to 28 (mean = 17, median = 18, standard deviation = 3.7). Similar to the approach used by Angle and Perry (1981) and Sirohi, McLaughlin, and Wittink (1998), we then averaged these responses for each chapter to provide chapter-level scores (e.g., the membership s affective commitment to the association) for each of the 150 chapters. Measures In Table 1, we provide a detailed summary of the multipleitem scales used in this study. We used a single archival measure provided by the NALU, the percentage of existing members that renewed their membership, to measure membership retention. We used reflective scales to measure the three components of commitment in this study. We measured the remaining variables in our model (i.e., participation, coproduction, core services performance, recognition, member interdependence enhancement, dissemination of organizational knowledge, and external membership requirements) with formative scales (Fornell and Bookstein 1982). The items constituting each of these seven formative scales are based on one-on-one interviews conducted with members, officers, and the executive staff of the NALU. We pretested all items in a survey of 58 chapter presidents and obtained the item weights used to develop the summated scores for each scale through a survey of six state-level NALU executives. We then applied these weights to the z- scores for each of the items to provide weighted scores. To measure affective and continuance commitment, we used the eight-item Likert scales developed by Allen and Meyer (1990), making only minor modifications in wording when the context required it. Because Allen and Meyer s (1990) operationalization of normative commitment is inconsistent with our conceptualization of it (the membership s sense of moral obligation to the association and to the industry that the association represents), we developed a new six-item Likert scale. We used the average commitment level of the members in each chapter as the chapter s commitment score. Before aggregating the individual responses, we ran analyses of variance to verify that the differences among the chapter means were statistically significant for the measures of all three forms of commitment (p <.01 for affective and continuance; p <.02 for normative). Control Factors In estimating our model, it seemed important to control for three variables not of theoretical interest to rule out rival explanations for our results and look for boundaries of hypothesized effects. First, consistent with the organizational demographic literature (O Reilly, Caldwell, and Barnett 1989), our exploratory research indicates that chapter size should have a negative effect on participation, coproduction, and the average level of commitment. In essence, larger chapters generally have more fringe members relative to the number of core members. Second, although the NALU was established for agents who sell life and health insurance, multiline agents (those that sell auto and property insurance along with life and health lines) are eligible to join, but only a portion of their needs are met through the association. Organizational demography theory suggests that the cohort of multiline members would develop lower levels of commitment than would the other members (Ashforth and Mael 1989; Pfeffer 1983). Finally, consistent with organizational demography research, we expect the percentage of new members in a chapter to have a negative effect on the retention rate, as many life insurance agents quit the business during their first year. Analysis and Findings Check for Response Bias To examine potential nonresponse bias in the chapter president survey, we used archival data to compare the sample with the population of NALU chapters with at least 60 members on five variables (number of members, member retention, percentage of new members, number of chapter awards applied for, and number of awards won). None of these five t-tests for differences between the sample and the population means was statistically significant at the p <.05 level. In the member survey, the mean of the sample was slightly younger (47 years versus 49 years) and more experienced (15.5 years versus 14.0 years) than the population of all NALU members. However, the difference in experience can be partially explained by the restriction of the sample to those who had been members for at least 1.5 years. Analysis of the Commitment Measures As a first step, the initial 22 items developed for measuring the three dimensions of commitment were submitted to image factor analysis with oblique rotation. Items with loadings less than.55 and/or cross-loadings greater than.35 were discarded. This resulted in the deletion of 2 of the 8 affective commitment items, 3 of the 8 continuance commitment items, and 2 of the 6 normative commitment items. Amos Version 3.6 (Arbuckle 1997) was used to perform confirmatory factor analysis on the remaining 15 commitment 40 / Journal of Marketing, July 2000

8 TABLE 1 Final Measurement Items Construct Source c Item Affective MQ I feel a strong sense of belonging to this Association of Life Underwriters (ALU). commitment a,b MQ I feel as if the ALU s problems are my own. Reflective scale MQ This ALU has a great deal of personal meaning for me. α =.95 MQ I enjoy discussing the ALU with other people. MQ I feel like part of the family at this ALU. MQ I have little, if any, emotional attachment with this ALU. (reverse scored) Continuance MQ Too much in my career would be disrupted if I decided I wanted to drop my ALU commitment a,b membership now. Reflective scale MQ Right now, staying with this ALU is a matter of necessity as much as desire. α =.90 MQ I feel I have too few options to consider dropping my ALU membership. MQ One serious consequence of dropping my ALU membership would be the scarcity of available alternatives. MQ A major reason I continue to belong to this ALU is that dropping my membership would require considerable personal or professional sacrifice another association may not match the overall benefits I have here. Normative MQ Professional agents who are licensed to sell life/health insurance ought to be commitment a members of this association. Reflective scale MQ Because it supports me, it is only right that I should support the ALU through my α =.84 continued membership. MQ If only for the sake of preserving and enhancing the insurance selling profession, I feel that I have an obligation to maintain my ALU membership. MQ Licensed life/health insurance agents should not feel a sense of duty to be ALU members. (reverse scored) Participation Archive Percentage of members applying for NALU awards, fiscal year Formative scale CPQ Percentage of membership on average that attend regular ALU meetings. CPQ Percentage of membership attending ALU-sponsored education seminars. MQ On average, how much time do you spend reading each issue of NALU trade magazine? MQ Have you completed (or will complete) any life underwriters training course (LUTC) classes sponsored by your ALU this year? (yes/no) Coproduction CPQ Percentage of membership formally involved in running the association. Formative scale CPQ Percentage of membership that participated in the community service project. MQ In the past year, have you specifically encouraged another member to participate in or attend one or more of the association s activities? (yes/no) MQ In the past year, have you encouraged a nonmember to join this ALU? (yes/no) MQ In the past year, have you responded to a legislative action alert on one or more occasions? (yes/no) MQ In the past year, have you made a contribution to life underwriters political action committee (yes/no) Core services CPQ How many regular ALU meetings have you held this year? (range 6 17) performance CPQ Total continuing education course credit hours a member can earn by attending Formative scale ALU seminars this year. (categorize range 0 4) CPQ How many LUTC classes does your ALU sponsor? (range 0 8) CPQ How many times has your ALU published a newsletter this year? (range 0 12) CPQ How many news releases has your ALU sent out over the past year? (range 0 2) CPQ In the past year, has your ALU advertised in the local media? (yes/no) Recognition CPQ Did your ALU hold a recognition ceremony this year? (yes/no) Formative scale CPQ On average, at your ALU meetings, how many members are individually recognized for their efforts on behalf of the association? (range 0 6) CPQ In an average issue of your ALU s newsletter, how many members get specifically mentioned for their efforts on behalf of the association? (range 0 8) CPQ This year, how many of your ALU s officers, board members, and committee leaders/members will receive a formal award from the ALU in recognition of their service to the association? (range 0 5) Professional Associations / 41

9 TABLE 1 Continued Construct Source (3) Item Member CPQ At your ALU meetings, do your members wear name tags? (yes/no) interdependence CPQ At our meetings, we typically have an activity designed so members get enhancement acquainted with others. Formative scale d CPQ In our newsletter, we provide a forum section where members can share ideas with other members. CPQ In our newsletter, we provide testimonials of how two or more members have worked together to solve a problem. CPQ Does your ALU actively encourage members to use the membership directory? (yes/no) Dissemination of CPQ At/in our ALU meetings/newsletter, we review the lobbying/legislative activity of organizational state or national ALU. knowledge CPQ At/in our ALU meetings/newsletter, we review actions of our local ALU board. Formative scale d CPQ At/in our ALU meetings/newsletter, mention is made of who to contact regarding an ALU/NALU member service. CPQ At/in our ALU meetings/newsletter, we highlight key statistics and ALU information. CPQ At/in our ALU meetings/newsletter, we update progress toward ALU goals. External CPQ Our ALU actively promotes the 100% Agency Award to local agencies. (five-point membership Likert scale) requirements CPQ During the past 12 months, to what extent has your ALU used the following Formative scale methods to contact agency managers for member recruitment and retention purposes? (average four methods: mail, telephone, fax, face-to-face; portion of managers contacted, five-point scale, none/all) CPQ Percentage of new member recruiting efforts directed to partnering with the local agency managers versus promoting directly to the agents. CPQ Percentage of membership renewal efforts directed to partnering with the local agency managers versus promoting directly to the agents. Notes: a All items for construct employ seven-point Likert scales. bthe scale was derived from Allen and Meyer (1990). cmq indicates member survey, CPQ indicates chapter president survey, and archive indicates that data were supplied from NALU records. dunless otherwise indicated, all items are measured as five-point frequency scales (never/always). items, and each item was assigned to only the one dimension of commitment it was designed to reflect (see Table 1). Bentler s (1990) comparative fit index (CFI) was.92, which indicates that the model provides a good overall fit to the sample covariance matrix. All 15 items loaded at least.7 on their assigned factors, and all loadings were statistically significant (p <.05). The correlations among the three dimensions of commitment ranged from.46 for normative and continuance commitment to.64 for normative and affective commitment. Cronbach s coefficient alpha ranged from.84 for normative commitment to.95 for affective commitment, which easily exceeds Nunnally s (1978) recommended minimum level of.70. Evidence for the discriminant validity for this set of scales comes from all the correlations among the three dimensions of commitment being significantly (p <.05) less than 1.0 and the shared variance between any two of these dimensions always being less than the average item variance explained by the constructs (i.e., Fornell and Larcker s [1981] index of the average item variance extracted by each construct, ρ vc(η) ), which ranged from.62 for normative commitment to.78 for affective commitment. Following Lastovicka and Thamodaran (1991) and Kumar, Scheer, and Steenkamp (1995a), we used the factor scores obtained from the image factor analysis to represent the commitment constructs in estimating the structural model. Empirical Testing of Hypothesized Structural Model We estimated the hypothesized structural model using Amos 3.6 (Arbuckle 1997). Similar to the approach used by Perdue and Summers (1991), we made the analysis of the hypothesized model in the following steps. First, we added the potential control variables to the hypothesized model to create a baseline model. Second, we examined the overidentifying restrictions of the model. Finally, the nonsignificant hypothesized paths were fixed at zero one at a time to arrive at a final parsimonious model. Baseline model. The three control variables were added to the hypothesized model and included five paths: (1) chapter size to affective commitment, (2) chapter size to participation, (3) chapter size to coproduction, (4) percentage of multiline members to affective commitment, and (5) percentage of new members to retention (see Figure 2). Each of these paths was statistically significant (p <.05, two-tailed test), and their effects were validated through discussions with NALU executive staff. The model was estimated before and after addition of the control variables. The fit of the model without the control factors was acceptable (chisquare = 33.85, 24 degrees of freedom [d.f.]; p =.087; CFI =.975), and it improved when the control factors were added (chi-square = 60.99, 52 d.f.; p =.184; CFI =.984). 42 / Journal of Marketing, July 2000

10 FIGURE 2 Final Model, Including Control Variables Normative commitment Percent new Reliance on external membership requirements (.131) (.246) (.420) Retention Dissemination of organizational knowledge (.109) Continuance commitment (.128) Participation (.184) Enhancement of member interdependence (.123) (.123) (.229) Core services performance (.213) Affective commitment (.346) (.505) Coproduction (.214) (.120) (.239) (.331) Recognition Multiline percent Chapter size Notes: Standardized coefficients are shown. Italics denote control variable. Key to control variables: percent new = percentage of chapter s members that joined in previous year, multiline percentage = percentage of the chapter s members that sell multiple lines of insurance, and chapter size = number of members in the chapter. Test for unmet overidentifying restrictions. The modification indices indicated that four causal paths initially assumed to be null should be added: (1) core services performance to retention, (2) normative commitment to coproduction, (3) member interdependence to coproduction, and (4) external membership requirement to participation. Each of these paths was positive and statistically significant (p <.05, two-tailed test) and could be theoretically justified. The statistical significance of the first of these paths indicates that core services performance has a direct effect on retention, as suggested by Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman (1996). The statistically significant path from normative commitment to coproduction suggests that members sense of obligation regarding membership in the association also promotes a sense of obligation to engage in the work of the association. The direct path added from external membership requirements to participation suggests that the insurance agencies respond to the chapter s appeals for support by encouraging their employees who are members to take greater advantage of the chapter s services. The direct path from member interdependence to coproduction is based on the rationale that members receive value from interactions Professional Associations / 43