Vol. 13 No. 3 (2025)
September 2025

Articles

Development and validation of the Customer Engagement Orientation scale: Assessing firms’ customer engagement orientation and its impact on performance

Published 2025-09-30

  • Katarzyna Żyminkowska
    • ,
  • Izabela Kowalik
    • ,
  • Agnieszka Pleśniak

Katarzyna Żyminkowska
University of Bielsko-Biała

Izabela Kowalik
Warsaw School of Economics

Agnieszka Pleśniak
Warsaw School of Economics

Abstract

Objective: The article aims to develop and validate a new scale – Customer Engagement Orientation (CENOR) – to measure a firm’s customer engagement orientation and to provide evidence of its impact on firm performance. Although customer engagement marketing has received growing scholarly attention, the concept of a firm’s customer engagement orientation – particularly in capturing value from non-transactional customer behaviour – remains underexplored. Its precise definition, measurement, and firm-level effects are still unclear.

Research Design & Methods: We followed Churchill’s procedure (1979) to create and validate the CENOR scale and analyse its impact on firm performance. Firstly, we proposed the scale items based on insights gathered from the literature review and qualitative research of six company managers. Subsequently, the scale underwent assessment and validation through a quantitative study of 100 firms in the household appliances industry and 101 firms in the financial services industry. Finally, we tested nomological validity through a separate quantitative study of 201 firms in the food, beverage, and fashion industries, using structural equation modelling to examine the relationships between the firm’s CENOR and overall performance.

Findings: We developed and validated a comprehensive measurement tool for assessing the customer engagement orientation of marketing managers. Our findings demonstrate that the CENOR scale is reliable and valid across three distinct samples of companies operating in a developed economy of Poland. It remains invariant across consumer goods and services industries. Our findings support the external validity of the CENOR as a predictor of initiatives aimed at developing customer engagement behaviour. Furthermore, we confirmed a firm’s customer engagement orientation as a critical factor in driving business performance.

Implications & Recommendations: The prepared measurement tool provides a robust basis for future investigations into the implementation of customer engagement orientation within firms stemming from different industries operating in developed markets. It offers practical guidance for implementing a customer engagement-oriented approach within an organisation and equips practitioners with tools to systematically assess and improve their customer engagement orientation, ultimately driving improved performance.

Contribution & Value Added: The unique contribution of this study to the theory of customer engagement marketing lies in combining the development of a new scale for measuring a firm’s customer engagement orientation with an analysis of its impact on performance. It contributes to the knowledge of strategic marketing by identifying a firm’s engagement orientation as an organisational culture focused on encouraging customers to interact and build relationships beyond transactions. It provides evidence of the positive impact of this orientation on firm performance enhancing our understanding of how a company’s management system can successfully capture value from customer resources involved in their non-transactional activities.

Keywords

firm’s customer engagement orientation, customer engagement marketing, business performance, SEM modelling, consumer goods and service industries

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Author Biography

Katarzyna Żyminkowska

Associate Professor and the head of the Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship at the University of Bielsko-Biala (Poland). Her research interests include customer engagement marketing, customer engage-ment orientation, consumer engagement behaviour, and entrepreneurship pedagogy.

Izabela Kowalik

Full Professor at the Department of International Marketing, SGH Warsaw School of Economics (Poland). Her research interests include marketing management, entrepreneurship and international business.

Agnieszka Pleśniak

Assistant Professor at the Department of International Marketing, SGH Warsaw School of Economics (Poland). Her research interests include marketing research and applying statistical methods to measure latent con-structs and traits such as attitudes and beliefs and their relation to behaviour.

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