Constructing a Trade Show Exhibitor Satisfaction Scale from a Stakeholder Perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to construct and validate an Exhibitor Satisfaction Scale that accounts for the significant roles of three key stakeholders (i.e., trade show visitors, exhibitors, and organizers) in a trade show context through a pilot test, scale purification and validation. The final instrument consisted of 46-items representing 3 dimensions and 12 sub-dimensions of exhibitors’ satisfaction. Reliability, unidimensionality, content validity, construct validity, discriminant validity, and predictive validity of the scale were tested and established using 930 responses from 4 trade shows in China. The resulting instrument was found to be superior to existing instruments in that it comprehensively measures exhibitors’ performance at a trade show and explains a large portion of exhibitors’ overall satisfaction. A major contribution of this study is that it introduces stakeholder theory as a guiding framework for measuring satisfaction in the trade show industry