The structural model of customer’s psychological investment and rubbed satisfaction: mediating role of perceived risk

Purpose of this study was to determine the structural model of the effect of customer’s psychological investment on the changes in rubbed satisfaction with the mediating role of the customer's perceived risk. The research method was correlational and the statistical population consisted of all buyers and visitors of appliance stores in the City of Mashhad in North Eastern Iran (N= five million according to 2017 census). To determine the sample size, Cochran’s formula was used and Customers’ Psychological Investment Questionnaire (Bügel, Buunk, and Verhoef, 2010), Customer’s Rubbed Satisfaction Questionnaire (Sunderland, Berg, and Ringbo, 2014) and Customer's Perceived Risk Questionnaire (Sun, 2014) were distributed among 360 participants in different areas of the 17 municipality districts of Mashhad and after deletion of outlier data, 354 questionnaires with correlation and structural equation modeling (SEM) were analyzed. Results indicated that customer’s psychological investment had a positive and significant effect on satisfaction (β=0.59) and perceived risk (β=0.58). In addition, perceived risk (β=0.53) had a direct and positive effect on customer’s rubbed satisfaction. Furthermore, customer’s perceived risk (β=0.30) had a mediating role in the relationship between customer psychological investments and customer’s rubbed satisfaction satisfaction. Since rubbed satisfaction is affects both customers’ psychological investment and perceived risk, in order to prevent losing satisfied customers, appliance stores, should decrease their perceived risk and not increase their psychological investment.