The Impact of Flow and Communitas on Enduring Involvement in Extended Service Encounters

Abstract

This study explores the comparative effects of two antecedents of enduring involvement in determining whether social versus psychological effects are more important in establishing enduring involvement with an extended service encounter. Specifically, the authors look at the effects of communitas—a social effect—and flow—an individual psychological effect—to determine which has a stronger impact on one's enduring involvement in golf. Self-determination theory argues that flow should be more important than communitas in establishing enduring involvement because of higher levels of volitional control; the findings support this premise. From a practical perspective, these findings should help extended service managers determine which service environments or strategies (e.g., social atmosphere strategies vs. game improvement strategies) to emphasize when trying to establish loyal participants. The moderating effects of gender and participation frequency on the relationships between communitas and enduring involvement and between flow and enduring involvement are also examined.

The Impact of Endogenous Motivations on Adoption of IT-Enabled Services

“…In particular, our results show substantial effects of consumers' internal PLOC on perceived usefulness and ease of use of HEMS. This finding underscores the notion that if individuals experience their behavior as self-determined, they will perceive it as easier to perform (see also McGinnis, Gentry, and Gao 2008). In addition, when people identify with values associated with a specific behavior, they regard it as more useful (Malhotra, Galletta, and Kirsch 2008).…”

“…In understanding the influence of selfdetermination on behavior, the OIT has proved to be valuable in different scientific areas (Deci and Ryan 2002) and in service research as well (e.g., Cadwallader et al 2010;McGinnis, Gentry, and Gao 2008). The OIT specifies a taxonomy of individually experienced levels of autonomy that represents different qualitative types of motivation as the perceived locus of causality (PLOC): PLOC reflects the degree to which an individual experiences a behavior as initiated and endorsed by the self (Ryan and Connell 1989).…”

Flujo Compartido y Reuniones Colectivas Positivas

“…Beyond the immediate effects on the group-team, intense participation in folk festival and the shared flow trig-ger social integration like perceiving social support outside the specific group of Tamborrada. In this regard, optimal experience in social contexts contributes to building a sense of community and social solidarity (McGinnis, Gentry, & Gao, 2008;Sato, 1998).…”

Creating commercially compelling website-service encounters: an examination of the effect of website-service interface performance components on flow experiences

“…In the broader domain of services, flow experiences have been studied in extended service encounters (Hopkinson and Pujari 1999;McGinnis et al 2008), and recently, McGinnis et al (2008) note that the service provider in many ways helps to produce consumer experiences such as flow. Thus, specific aspects of the service performance delivered by the firm are seen as critical in facilitating the state of flow and thus compelling experiences.…”