When does Consumer Empowerment Lead to Satisfied Customers? Some Mediating and Moderating Effects of the Empowerment-Satisfaction Link

Technological advances increasingly provide marketers with the opportunity to empower consumers. Consumer empowerment is a positive subjective state evoked by consumer perceptions of increasing control. As a positive state, increasing consumer empowerment should be associated with increasing consumer satisfaction. If such a relationship exists, it may be influenced by a number of contextual variables. Knowing in what contexts empowerment has a greater impact on satisfaction would help marketers decide when they could more effectively use such a strategy. This study has two purposes: 1) to investigate the relationship between consumer empowerment and satisfaction and 2) to investigate a set of potential influences on that relationship. Marketers will be in a better position to decide when to empower consumers if they have guidance on the relationships between these variables.