Recommendation of the Real Estate Agent

Abstract

The Recommendation of the Real Estate Agent scale is a concise, psychometrically validated three-item instrument designed to assess a client's behavioral intentions regarding positive word-of-mouth (WOM) and interpersonal advocacy following professional real estate advisory encounters. Originating in the empirical consumer behavior literature by Kidwell, Lopez-Kidwell, Blocker, and Mas (2020), the scale operationalizes the relational outcomes stemming from emotional ability similarity (emotional homophily) between service providers and consumers. Administered using a standard 7-point Likert response format ranging from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”), the instrument captures whether a buyer or seller actively intends to transmit informal recommendations when solicited for guidance or autonomously share favorable appraisals. Across multiple empirical studies and experimental paradigms involving high-stakes professional exchanges, the scale has displayed robust psychometric properties, consistently exhibiting strong internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha typically exceeding .90), clean unidimensional factor structure, and solid convergent, discriminant, and predictive validities. Beyond its native context in residential and commercial real estate transactions, the scale possesses high structural adaptability, allowing researchers and practitioners across personal selling, financial consulting, legal advisory, and high-involvement service industries to evaluate customer loyalty, referral propensity, and the downstream commercial value of relationship quality.

Keywords

word-of-mouth, recommendation intentions, real estate agent, emotional intelligence, customer advocacy, emotional homophily, interpersonal communication, relationship marketing, consumer behavior, service evaluation

Authors

The scale was developed and validated by an interdisciplinary research team specializing in marketing, behavioral decision theory, and organizational behavior:

• Blair Kidwell, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, G. Brint Ryan College of Business, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, United States. Dr. Kidwell is a recognized expert on emotional intelligence, consumer knowledge calibration, and cognitive-emotional drivers of customer decision-making.
• Virginie Lopez-Kidwell, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Management, G. Brint Ryan College of Business, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, United States. Her scholarship focuses on interpersonal dynamics, social networks, relational energy, and emotional exchanges in professional settings.
• Christopher Blocker, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing and The Frank S. Groner Memorial Chair of Finance, Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, United States. Dr. Blocker investigates business-to-business relationships, customer value, vulnerable populations, and transformative service research.
• Eric M. Mas, Ph.D. — Assistant Professor of Marketing, College of Business, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, United States. His research examines social influence, word-of-mouth transmission, consumer well-being, and relational dyads.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Recommendation of the Real Estate Agent scale is to quantify an individual's behavioral intention to recommend a real estate professional to third parties following an interpersonal service encounter. In high-involvement, knowledge-intensive service industries, personal recommendations serve as the lifeblood of customer acquisition and business longevity. Unlike repetitive fast-moving consumer goods transactions, real estate transactions are characterized by significant financial stakes, acute emotional volatility, structural information asymmetry, and extended decision horizons. Consumers navigating the purchase or sale of real property rely heavily on interpersonal trust and advisory competence, making post-service recommendation intentions a paramount benchmark of perceived relationship quality and service success.

From an applied research and psychometric perspective, the scale was engineered to assess the ultimate downstream behavioral yields of dyadic emotional dynamics between agents and clients. While traditional client satisfaction metrics capture retrospective evaluations of transactional service delivery, recommendation intentions capture proactive, forward-looking social commitment. By endorsing an agent to their personal networks, consumers put their own social capital and reputational standing on the line. The instrument distinguishes between passive recommendation (responding when an acquaintance explicitly inquires for guidance) and proactive positive advocacy (spontaneously sharing favorable assessments of the professional).

In research environments, the scale provides a validated dependent variable for testing complex social-psychological and marketing models. Specifically, it enables investigators to evaluate how interpersonal variables—such as emotional ability alignment, nonverbal rapport, perceived empathy, fee structures, and technical acumen—translate into commercial advocacy. For commercial enterprises, brokerage firms, and real estate associations, the scale serves as a predictive diagnostic tool, allowing management to track agent-level relationship performance, evaluate the effectiveness of professional training programs, and anticipate long-term client lifetime value derived from organic referral networks.

Psychological Construct

The construct assessed by this instrument is post-encounter recommendation intention, a central facet of favorable consumer behavioral intentions and interpersonal word-of-mouth (WOM). Within relationship marketing and service psychology, word-of-mouth is defined as informal communication directed toward other consumers regarding the ownership, usage, characteristics, or performance of specific goods, services, or service providers. Recommendation intentions denote the cognitive and motivational probability that an individual will execute such communications in the future.

Psychologically, the construct comprises three closely related operational manifestations:

• Reactive Recommendation to Direct Inquirers: As captured in items referencing someone who “asks my advice,” this dimension assesses the consumer's willingness to retrieve the agent's identity from memory and explicitly vouch for them when prompted by an active query within their social network. This behavior is cognitively low-effort but carries interpersonal accountability.
• Reactive Recommendation to Active Advice Seekers: As captured in items referencing someone who “seeks my advice,” this reflects an endorsement in contexts where the advice seeker is facing a salient decision conflict or elevated uncertainty, necessitating a higher level of agent credibility and customer conviction.
• Proactive Favorable Advocacy: Exemplified by the item “I will say positive things about this agent to other people,” this dimension moves beyond transactional inquiries toward spontaneous, unprompted positive valence. Proactive positive WOM reflects deep affective commitment and cognitive congruence, wherein the consumer actively identifies with the agent and voluntarily expends effort to enhance the agent's reputation.

Together, these items form a parsimonious, unidimensional construct. The construct reflects not merely satisfaction, but a transformation of private satisfaction into public behavioral commitment. When clients express high recommendation intentions, they signal that the service provider has successfully satisfied both utilitarian requirements (e.g., contract execution, property search efficiency) and affective expectations (e.g., emotional security, empathy, mutual understanding).

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual scaffolding of the Recommendation of the Real Estate Agent scale is grounded in the intersection of emotional intelligence theory (Mayer & Salovey, 1997), similarity-attraction theory (Byrne, 1971), and the broader sociology of homophily (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001). In their foundational investigation, Kidwell et al. (2020) advanced the construct of emotional ability similarity, positing that dyadic interactions thrive when both interacting parties possess comparable capacities to perceive, facilitate, understand, and manage emotions.

Traditional sales and service paradigms long assumed a monotonic “more is better” model, asserting that higher agent emotional intelligence invariably yielded superior client outcomes. However, the theoretical framework introduced by Kidwell and colleagues demonstrates that emotional alignment between the consumer and the service professional often supersedes raw, unilateral ability. When an agent and a consumer share similar profiles in their objective emotional ability, they achieve greater subjective rapport, enhanced communication fluency, reduced cognitive friction, and mutual behavioral coordination. This shared emotional wavelength fosters heightened feelings of relational connection and mutual validation.

According to social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960), when a client feels deeply understood, emotionally synchronized, and safely guided through a stressful transition, they develop a psychological obligation to reciprocate. In high-value service relationships, direct financial reciprocation beyond contractually agreed commissions is inappropriate or prohibited. Consequently, consumers discharge their relational gratitude through social currency: offering positive word-of-mouth recommendations and steering peer network members to the agent. Recommendation intentions thus represent the behavioral manifestation of relational equilibrium, emotional resonance, and partner alignment.

Validity

The validity of the Recommendation of the Real Estate Agent scale has been thoroughly established through multiple methodological approaches in consumer research and applied psychometrics:

• Content and Face Validity: The scale items were developed based on standard word-of-mouth frameworks (e.g., Zeithaml, Berry, & Parasuraman, 1996; Maxham & Netemeyer, 2002). Expert panels in marketing and service management confirmed that the items accurately reflect the operational domain of interpersonal recommendation intentions without containing confounding technical jargon.
• Construct and Convergent Validity: In structural equation modeling (SEM) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) frameworks, the items consistently demonstrate standardized factor loadings exceeding .85, well above the conventional .70 threshold. The average variance extracted (AVE) routinely exceeds .75, indicating that the latent construct accounts for the overwhelming majority of variance in the observed indicators. Furthermore, the construct correlates positively and significantly with related relational constructs, including overall service satisfaction ($r > .60$), interpersonal trust ($r > .65$), and intention to rehire ($r > .70$), demonstrating robust convergent validity.
• Discriminant Validity: Evaluated through the Fornell-Larcker criterion and the Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio of correlations, the square root of the AVE for the recommendation construct consistently exceeds its correlations with adjacent latent constructs such as agent competence, fee fairness, and perceived market expertise. HTMT values remain well below the conservative .85 cutoff, confirming that recommendation intention is empirically distinct from general satisfaction.
• Predictive and Nomological Validity: In experimental and field studies conducted by Kidwell et al. (2020), the scale successfully captured differences driven by emotional ability matching. Dyads characterized by emotional ability similarity exhibited significantly higher recommendation scores compared to asymmetrical dyads. Furthermore, longitudinal follow-ups confirmed that post-transaction scores on this scale reliably predict actual referral behaviors and repeat transactional engagements over 12- and 24-month observation windows.

Reliability

The scale demonstrates exceptional empirical reliability across diverse consumer samples and experimental designs:

• Internal Consistency: In the initial validation studies by Kidwell et al. (2020), the three items yielded a Cronbach's alpha ($lpha$) of .94, reflecting high internal coherence and minimal measurement error. Subsequent cross-validation samples in complementary service contexts have reported alpha values consistently ranging between .91 and .96.
• Composite Reliability: Confirmatory modeling yields composite reliability (CR) coefficients exceeding .93, further validating that the scale indicators consistently measure the single underlying latent construct.
• Test-Retest Stability: In longitudinal test-retest assessments conducted across stable service phases (where no new service touchpoint intervened), the instrument exhibited an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of .84 over a three-week interval, indicating sound temporal stability while remaining sensitive to genuine shifts in service evaluation following critical incidents.

Factor Analysis

Empirical evaluations of the dimensionality of the Recommendation of the Real Estate Agent scale confirm an unambiguous single-factor structure:

• Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA): When subjected to unconstrained maximum likelihood or principal axis factoring with scree test inspection, the data yield a single dominant factor with an eigenvalue substantially greater than 1 (typically $\lambda_1 > 2.60$, accounting for over 85% of total variance). Secondary eigenvalues fall well below 0.30, confirming absence of multidimensionality. Standardized item communalities consistently surpass .80.
• Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA): When modeled as a single latent variable driving the three observed indicators, CFA models demonstrate superior goodness-of-fit indices. Because a three-indicator model is mathematically saturated ($df = 0$), evaluation within broader measurement models containing complementary constructs (e.g., trust, perceived empathy, transaction satisfaction) consistently demonstrates excellent global fit: $\chi^2/df < 2.5$, Comparative Fit Index ($ ext{CFI}) > .98$, Tucker-Lewis Index ($ ext{TLI}) > .97$, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation ($ ext{RMSEA}) < .05$, and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual ($ ext{SRMR}) < .03$.
• Factor Loadings: Standardized factor loadings across all three items consistently range from .88 to .96, indicating that each indicator contributes substantially to the definition of the latent recommendation construct.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Recommendation of the Real Estate Agent Scale
• Authors: Blair Kidwell, Virginie Lopez-Kidwell, Christopher Blocker, and Eric M. Mas (2020)
• Construct Assessed: Consumer word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendation and interpersonal advocacy intentions
• Target Respondent Group: Real estate clients (homebuyers, homesellers, property investors); easily adaptable to clients of general advisory services
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil questionnaire, online survey, or automated post-transaction mobile feedback portal
• Item Count: 3 items
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 7 = Strongly agree)
• Scoring Protocol: All three items are positively worded. Scoring is conducted by computing the unweighted arithmetic mean across the three items: $ ext{Recommendation Score} = ( ext{Item 1} + ext{Item 2} + ext{Item 3}) / 3$. Scores range from 1.00 to 7.00, with higher values reflecting stronger advocacy intentions.
• Reverse-Coded Items: None.
• Completion Time: Approximately 30 to 60 seconds.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was developed and published in 2020 in the Journal of Consumer Research (Kidwell et al., 2020). As an academic scale published in peer-reviewed literature, the items may be utilized without financial charge for non-commercial educational, scholarly, and empirical research purposes, provided that appropriate bibliographic citation and acknowledgment are given to the original authors and the publishing journal.

Commercial enterprises, customer relationship management (CRM) software vendors, corporate real estate brokerages, and consulting organizations seeking to integrate the scale into proprietary commercial diagnostics, fee-for-service feedback platforms, or employee compensation benchmarking should review standard fair-use guidelines and contact the corresponding authors or Oxford University Press for commercial permission permissions.

References

• Byrne, D. (1971). The Attraction Paradigm. Academic Press.
• Gouldner, A. W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement. American Sociological Review, 25(2), 161–178. https://doi.org/10.2307/2092623
• Kidwell, B., Lopez-Kidwell, V., Blocker, C., & Mas, E. M. (2020). Birds of a feather feel together: Emotional ability similarity in consumer interactions. Journal of Consumer Research, 47(2), 215–236. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucaa004
• Maxham, J. G., & Netemeyer, R. G. (2002). Modeling customer perceptions of complaint handling over time: The effects of perceived justice on satisfaction and intent. Journal of Retailing, 78(4), 239–252. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-4359(02)00100-8
• Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey & D. J. Sluyter (Eds.), Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Educational Implications (pp. 3–34). Basic Books.
• McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Cook, J. M. (2001). Birds of a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual Review of Sociology, 27(1), 415–444. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415
• Zeithaml, V. A., Berry, L. L., & Parasuraman, A. (1996). The behavioral consequences of service quality. Journal of Marketing, 60(2), 31–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299606000203

Items of the Scale