Evolutionary changes in service attribute importance in a crisis scenario : the Uruguayan financial crisis

Abstract

This article attempts to identify and asses the evolution of consumers' differential reactions to major service attribute classes that resulted from and were propagated by a servere financial crisis. The authors perform a longitudinal analysis, using correspondence analysis of square aymmetric matrices, on data generated from three different postcrisis time periods. The first period encompasses data during the 2 weeks after the crisis occurred, the second period assesses data 1 year later, and the third period refers to 5 years later. The results from the first and second periods both indicate the growing importance of credence attributes rather than search attributes compared with during the precrisis period. The third-period analysis indicates a reversal and greater importance of the search attributes that were important in the precrisis period. The result also reveal correlations with the type of banking organization. These findings point to important managerial implications; bank management's inability to realize the shift in consumers' attitudes failed to facilitate and expedite a resolution to the crisis