Investigation of customer loyalty in the mobile phone market with structural equation modeling: A research on teaching staff

In the social and behavioral sciences, it is important to analyze relations between the variables. In accordance with this purpose to use there are many statistical methods such as path analysis, regression analysis. These methods only take into account the measurement error in the dependent variable. However, measurement error may have been made in the collection of data for independent variables. In addition, if some of the studied variables are unobservable using path analysis or regression analysis will not recommended. In this case, analyzes are done via structural equation modeling. Structural equation modeling consists of two models: structural model and measurement model. As known measurement of unobservable variables is done undirectly. In this context, unobserved structure is measured by using several observed variables. Modeling the relation between observed variables and unobserved variables is called measurement model. Additionally, modeling the cause- effect relation between unobservable variables is called structural model. In this study, customer loyalty and its components in the mobile phone market were analyzed by using the structural equation modeling that one of latent variable models. The relations between customer satisfiction, trust and brand image which are components of customer loyalty were examined theoretically and hypotheses were tested by using the structural equation modeling. As a result of the analysis, validity of the theoretical model was determined and two in six suggested research hypotheses were rejected. Keywords: Structural Equation Modeling, Latent Variable, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Customer Loyalty, Mobile Phone Market.