From perceptions to propositions: Profiling customer value across retail contexts

The core claim made in the paper is that retailers wishing to identify and manage competitive customer value propositions succeed by measuring and modeling customer value perceptions with reference to specific contexts relevant for their competitive advantage. Hence, the purpose of the paper is to present development and validation of a scale for measuring and modeling customer value and to illustrate how contextual perspective contributes to the evaluation of customer value propositions. The findings, based on empirical data from Finland, Japan, and the U.S., validate a framework wherein customer value reflects economic, functional, emotional, and symbolic dimensions of value, associating with satisfaction and word of mouth effects. The customer value profiles generated on this basis provide analytical insight for evaluating how country, channel, product category, and competitive situation influence the criteria for contextual evaluation of customer value propositions.