Patronage Reduction Intention Scale

What it measures

A three-item, five-point Likert-type scale measuring a customer's regret for having patronized a particular retailer and their intention to reduce or stop future visits as a result of a bad experience. Ashley and Noble (2014) created the scale for Studies 2, 3, and 4, drawing conceptual inspiration from a similar measure by Gregoire and Fisher (2006). The authors referred to the construct as 'abandonment.' Each item contains blanks that must be completed with the type of activity (e.g., shop, eat, exercise) and type of facility (e.g., store, restaurant, fitness center) relevant to the study context. CFA supported good model fit across all three studies, and discriminant validity was established for all reflective constructs in the measurement models. Average variance extracted values were .69 (Study 2), .54 (Study 3), and .75 (Study 4). Internal consistency was good to excellent: alpha = .87, .78, and .90 in Studies 2, 3, and 4, respectively.

Scale items

• Based on my experience, I will _____ less at this _____.
• Based on my experience, I will not return to this _____.
• If I could do it again, I would have _____ at a different _____.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Blanks in items 1 and 3 (first blank in each) should be filled with the type of activity the participant was engaging in (e.g., shop, eat, exercise). All remaining blanks should specify the type of facility (e.g., store, restaurant, fitness center). Five-point Likert format confirmed by Noble (2015, personal correspondence). The scale is labelled 'patronage reduction' here; Ashley and Noble (2014) used the label 'abandonment.' The AVE of .54 in Study 3 falls just above the commonly accepted threshold of .50 for adequate convergent validity. Researchers using CFA should verify AVE and composite reliability values for their specific sample. The scale draws on earlier work by Gregoire and Fisher (2006) on customer retaliation following service failures. Reliability reported as composite reliability (CR/ω) rather than Cronbach's α; the value entered in the alpha field reflects CR. CR and omega are computed from the same formula using CFA factor loadings and are treated as equivalent here.

Citation

Ashley, C., & Noble, S. M. (2014). It's closing time: Territorial behaviors from customers in response to front line employees. Journal of Retailing, 90(1), 74–92.