Consumer Motivations for Pursuing Loyalty Program Rewards: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (abstract)

Best Paper in International and Intercultural Marketing Track

Aided by the exponential rate of globalization and digitalization, loyalty programs haveattained global reach. Paradoxically, however, dropout rates of loyalty programs haveaveraged over 75%. This disconcerting statistic, coupled with the lack of culture-specific insights in the literature, suggests a research topic of high theoretical and practical importance. This paper addresses two persisting knowledge gaps in the loyalty program literature. First, we depart from prior research, which has focused on non-members’ decision to join a loyalty program, by highlighting members’ motivation for reward pursuit. Second, we enrich a field that is inherently global in nature by exploring the impacts of culture on loyalty program effectiveness. Toward these ends, we develop a series of propositions that elucidate how Western, individualist versus Eastern, collectivist consumers respond to major loyalty program features. These propositions advance theoretical understanding of reward-induced behaviour and inform global managers of loyalty programs.