Rediscovering Satisfaction

Abstract

The authors present a phenomenological and longitudinal investigation of satisfaction, as revealed through consumers’ ownership experiences with technological products. The study seeks to serve a provocative role in this mature research area by stepping back from the historically dominant comparison standards paradigm to question, invigorate, and, in certain ways, redirect satisfaction research along emergent lines. Although results show that the dominant paradigm of satisfaction and its competing models (i.e., those based on the confirmation/disconfirmation of preconsumption standards) are distinctly operative in some of the consumer cases, they are also found to be insufficient or even irrelevant in others. The authors consider several theoretical extensions in light of this learning and induct a new satisfaction paradigm. Overall, the findings support a more holistic, context-dependent, and dynamic process of satisfaction. This process is revealed as a multi-model, multi-modal blend of motivations, cognitions, emotions, and meanings, embedded in sociocultural settings, which transforms during progressive and regressive consumer–product interactions.