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臺大管理論叢
第
27
卷第
1
期
213
To ensure a context in which customers inevitably face high transaction costs for
service products, the study examines tourism products. Purposive sampling was adopted to
ensure that customers experience the entire tourism product purchasing and experiencing
process. The construct of transaction cost should be investigated before tourists experience
the product to avoid the experience influencing their answers to cost-related questions. Tour
managers told travelers to complete the transaction cost-related section of a survey before
departing. Each questionnaire was numbered and the tourists received the same
questionnaire on the final day to complete the remaining sections, which concerned
perceived quality, perceived value, and behavior intention. A total of 111 valid questionnaires
were received.
Empirical results indicate that in the research model in which information searching
cost and moral hazard cost serve as the antecedents of Q-V-B, information searching cost
significantly affects perceived quality negatively; however, the association between
information searching cost and perceived value is not supported. Moral hazard cost
significantly affects both perceived quality and perceived value negatively, suggesting a high
transaction cost. Moral hazard cost indeed reduces the perceived quality and perceived value
of service products. Hence, the results suggest that in addition to creating positive qualities
or values, firms should pay more attention to how cost elements influence customer
decision-making. The empirical results also correspond to the actual phenomenon of the
tourism industry. Tourism service is a product with experience attributes (Mattila, 2001).
Customers purchasing a service cannot evaluate the quality without existing first-hand
experience and subjective judgment (Zeithaml et al., 1996). Thus, the exchange relationship
between tourism agents and customers contain numerous problems of information
asymmetry. A high level of information asymmetry reduces customer perception of tourism
service quality. The moral hazard cost, which refers to customers’ worries and doubts about
whether the agents will fulfill the service agreements after the transaction relationship is
established, greatly influences customer perception of the quality and value of products and
services. To reduce consumers’ moral hazard cost, firms must facilitate consumers’ employ
to correspond to their evaluation before purchase, particularly in a sector as experience-
oriented as tourism. Customers must actually experience to judge whether they have received
what they were promised. If the product or service fails to deliver the promised performance,
the consumer’s trust in the firm decreases. As the halo effect strengthens, negative cognition
of a product or service will develop, and in the long-term, damage the firm’s moral image.
Because moral hazard cost is a negative element, managers should understand the type of