Impact of relational benefits on trust in the Asian context: Alternative model testing with satisfaction as a mediator and relationship age as a moderator

Although it is an established phenomenon in the literature that relational benefits have many positive outcomes, the comparative effect of each type of benefit on different types of trust when customer satisfaction is the mediator, in particular in the Asian context, remains unexplored in the services literature. Therefore, this study, using several alternative models, aims to identify the impacts of confidence benefit, social benefit, and specific treatment benefit on competence, contractual, and goodwill trust, along with an investigation of the mediation impact of customer satisfaction. The study also explores the moderation impact of relationship age on the relational benefits–customer satisfaction relationship. The study's findings from partial least squares-based structural equation modeling analysis confirmed that ensuring confidence benefit produces a higher level of competence trust and contractual trust in comparison to that achieved by social benefit and special treatment benefit, whereas the latter two types of benefit are crucial for developing goodwill trust. Although customer satisfaction was found to be a significant mediator between relational benefits and the three dimensions of trust, the moderation effect of relationship age was not significant in any model. The study's managerial and theoretical implications are presented in the final section of the paper.