Abstract:

The main purpose of this study is to understand the correlations between relationship marketing, service quality, brand equity, relationship quality and organizational performance, using service quality, brand equity, and relationship quality as the mediating variables. The research subjects of this study are the managing staff of Starbucks Taiwan, front-line employees, and their existing and new customers (including prospective customers). The Convenience Sampling method is used to sample the population, while PLS-SEM is applied to verify the fitting effect of the Inner Model and Outer Model of this study. The Bayesian Estimation is adopted for an analytical test, with specific focus on the path coefficients between implicit (unobservable) variables in the structural model, to determine the structural model’s path effect. The Sobel test is applied to test the significance of the structural model’s direct effect, mediating effect and total effect. The research findings show that: (1) the relationship marketing of Starbucks Taiwan significantly impacts customers' cognitive service quality, brand equity, relationship quality, and organizational performance in a positive manner, which reveals the importance of relationship marketing to Starbucks Taiwan; and (2) relationship marketing, service quality, brand equity, relationship quality, and organizational performance are correlated, in which service quality, brand equity, and relationship quality have "mediating variable" effects. Additionally, the research results of this study may offer Starbucks Taiwan as a reference for decision-making. Key Words: Relationship Marketing, Service Quality, Brand Equity, Relationship Quality, Organizational Performance.

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