The Effect Of Relationship Quality On Attitude Mediated By Word Of Mouth In The Perspective Of Relationship Marketing (A Case Study In The Election Of The Member Of The Regional People’s Representative Council Of Lampung, Indonesia)

Abstract

The concept of relationship quality has been substantially recognized in the relationship marketing literature; however, no research identifies the causality between the relationship quality of regional people’s representative council and public attitudes. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the effect of relationship quality among members of the regional people’s representative council on public attitudes mediated by word of mouth. In this study, 198 respondents were selected as the samples by using purposive random sampling technique through a questionnaire. Data were analyzed using a quantitative analysis software named SEM. The results show that the relationship quality positively affects word of mouth and attitudes. Also, word of mouth positively affects attitudes. Furthermore, it was found that word of mouth fully mediates the effects of relationship quality on attitudes. The limitation in this study is the cross-sectional research design implemented to test the hypothesis model using SEM. Future researches may use different methodologies, such as longitudinal studies to examine the dynamic relationship between the constructs in this study. This study implies that the good relationship quality built by members of the regional people's representative council will form a positive perception or attitude that can build high-quality relationships with the community. The most important finding of this study is that the word of mouth has a mediating effect on the relationship between the quality of the relationship among the members of the regional people’s representative council and the attitude of the people of Lampung Province. This study contributes significantly to marketing theory and practice due to the diversity and fragmentation in Lampung Province in religion, belief, and ethnicity.