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The marketing and consumer behavior literature has traditionally suggested that customer satisfaction is a relative concept, and is always judged in relation to a standard (Olander, 1977). Consequently, in the course of its development, a number of different competing theories based on various standards have been postulated for explaining customer satisfaction. The theories include the Expectancy-Disconfirmation Paradigm (EDP), the Value-Precept Theory, the Attribution Theory, the Equity Theory, the Comparison Level Theory, the Evaluation Congruity Theory, the Person-Situation-Fit model, the Performance-Importance model, the Dissonance, and the Contrast Theory.

Early researchers, including Engel, Kollat & Blackwell (1968), Howard & Sheth (1969), & Cardozzo (1965), relied on the dissonance theory developed by Festinger (1957). Subsequent studies (Anderson, 1973; Olshavsky & Miller, 1972) drew on the assimilationcontrast theories proposed by Sheriff & Hovland (1961). Later, Oliver (1977), drawing on the adaptation level theory (Helson, 1964), developed the Expectancy-Disconfirmation model for the study of consumer satisfaction, which received the widest acceptance among researchers. These frameworks generally imply conscious comparison between a cognitive state prior to an event and a subsequent cognitive state, usually realized after the event is experienced (Oliver, 1980). Following the introduction of the EDP, Westbrook & Reilly (1983) proposed the Value-Precept theory as a competing framework to study consumer satisfaction, arguing that what is expected from a product may not correspond to what is desired and …