Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between service innovation, customer value creation (CVC) and customer satisfaction (CS) with specific emphasis to Ghanaian telecommunication operators.Design/methodology/approach: Assuming a positivist philosophical approach with a quantitative data analysis technique, the study samples 510 registered adult customers of at least one telecommunication network in Ghana. An exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to assess and confirm the proposed scales validity and the relationships of the research model.Findings: The study unveiled that a service firm’s ability to achieve CS is dependent on how telecommunication operators harness and deploy their service innovation activities. In addition, the study showed that CVC mediates the relationship between service innovation and CS. Thus, service innovation must create value for customers in order to enhance CS.Practical implications: By relating the study findings to firms’ innovation strategies, managers can improve the strength of their service offerings to achieve CS by spending more on consumer research, market research and increased customer interactions.Originality/value: Considering the uniqueness of this study in a Ghanaian context, the research draws on two influential theories, which are signaling theory and expectation disconfirmation theory to examine the differential role played by service innovation in enabling telecommunication operators in Ghana, to create customer value in order to achieve CS amidst the constraints in the business environment.

Purpose: Marketing researchers have usually studied consumers’ attachment to brands from an emotional bonding perspective. However, the purpose of this study is to show that attachment to objects is not only limited to bonding. Thus, the authors conceptualised the attachment theory from two perspectives: bonding-based and identity-based attachment. In addition, the study further seeks to identify the elements of each component and examine how these elements drive customer engagement on a brand’s Facebook page while assessing some consumer-related outcomes of customer engagement on Facebook.Design/methodology/approach: Using an online survey, the authors examined antecedents of customer engagement on Facebook and the outcomes of engagement behaviours among 649 respondents. Structural equation modelling was used in analysing the data.Findings: The results of the study show that consumers’ attachment to a brand drives them to engage the brand on the brand’s Facebook page. The results also show that the consumer engagement of brands on Facebook results in positive user-generated contents and consumer involvement.Practical implications: Managerially, the attachment theory provides value for marketers in terms of evaluating customer–brand relationships and how such a relationship can yield positive results.Originality/value: This study expands how the attachment theory has been conceptualised and applied in the marketing literature. The study shows that consumer attachment to brands is identity-based in addition to being bonding-based.

Purpose: In recent times, there has been a growing research interest in customer engagement; however, there is a paucity of empirical evidence on the drivers and outcomes of customer engagement such as brand loyalty. Furthermore, the customer engagement and brand loyalty literature have paid little attention to trustworthiness, even though it has the potential of explaining customer engagement, brand loyalty and their relationships. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to ascertain the drivers of customer engagement and its relationship with brand loyalty in the context of retail banking in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach: The authors employed the survey research design. The authors collected data from retail banking customers in Ghana using the intercept approach. There were 385 respondents. The authors analysed the data using the structural equation modelling approach. Findings: The results show that trustworthiness drives customer engagement which results in brand loyalty. The findings reveal that trustworthiness is defined through integrity, benevolence and ability while customer engagement is defined via emotional engagement, cognitive engagement and behavioural engagement. Originality/value: This study examines the impact of trustworthiness on customer engagement and brand loyalty. It shows the mediating role of customer engagement in the relationship between trustworthiness and brand loyalty.

Customer engagement has become a topical issue in the marketing literature in recent times. Many researchers have called for more research to be done on the antecedents of customer engagement. In response to this call, we examine the impact of trust on customer engagement. We used the survey research design to address the research question. We used the intercept approach to select the participants of the study. We collected the data from retail banking customers in Ghana. The hypotheses were tested using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The findings of this study show that trust in service providers and economy-based trust have a significant and positive effect on emotional engagement, cognitive engagement, and behavioural engagement. The implications of the findings have been discussed at the end of the paper.