Lealdade: análise da produção científica brasileira na área de marketing

Abstract

In a globalized business environment, marked by technological, competitive and consumer changes, creating strategies aimed at customer preservation is essential for any organization. As the business sector realized the importance and benefits of customer retention, the term loyalty also became more prominent in the academic and scientific area. In this sense, the purpose of this work is to identify the main characteristics of the Brazilian scientific studies published in Marketing on the topic of loyalty. To achieve this goal, a bibliometric study was carried out in association with qualitative analyzes, including the evaluation of measurement models present in the researched articles. Scientific articles published in the period from 2010 to 2016 were published in national scientific journals with an emphasis on Administration (ROSA, 2016), whose classification by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) is equal to or greater than B2, and in the annals of the events Encontro de Marketing da Associação Nacional de Pós-graduação em Pesquisa em Administração (EMA) and Encontro da Associação Nacional de Pós-graduação em Pesquisa em Administração (EnANPAD). The search for the articles occurred by means of title and abstract, using the term "loyalty". Fifty-nine studies were analyzed, adequate for the purpose of the research and the desired period. The results indicated the predominance of empirical and quantitative studies and, consequently, the need for qualitative studies capable of providing more detailed information on the subject. We also observed the fragility of the empirical researches regarding the sampling techniques used, which were predominantly non- probabilistic, and regarding the absence of justification and suggestions for future research in some studies. On the other hand, the expressive use of multivariate statistics among the data analysis techniques used reveals the robustness of the studies, as well as the large number of articles developed in co-authoring and articles dealing with mixed loyalty, considering both their behavioral dimension as well as attitudinal. The presence of measurement models in most of the studies also represents a favorable aspect. Both the strengths and weaknesses detected should be analyzed for future studies on the subject in order to fill the gaps still existing in this field of science.