Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate how retailer’s customer loyalty program can influence the channel power and what relationship between retailer with manufacturer can be created when channel power changes.   Method: A case study was adopted, and a qualitative research and face-to-face interview were used to collect the fundamental data.   Result & Conclusions: The results exhibit that the customer loyalty program implemented by retailer can increase its channel power (both in basic power and market power) and create a dominant relationship with high channel conflict with its manufacturer. Based on the research of the case company, I found a close relationship with cooperation and trust could be developed based on the customer loyalty program between retailer and manufacturer to create benefit for the both.   Suggestions for future research: Only adopted one case and one interview in the research is the main limitation. Additionally, the limited sample size limited the research in some generalizations. It is difficult to use only one case to represent the whole situation of the market. In the further, a larger sample size adopted in research can increases the reliability of researcher’s generalization.   Contribution of the thesis: The research discloses how retailer’s customer loyalty program can influence the channel power. The drawbacks of the dominant relationship which caused by channel power rising have been researched. How to develop close relationship and what benefit it can bring to retailer have also been investigated in the end.

Title: Investigating factors that can have an impact on customer loyalty -an empirical study of IKEA     Level: thesis for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration   Author: Nana Wei 8502202-T141   Supervisor: Dr. Aihie Osarenkhoe   Date: 2010 – May   Aim: The aim of this thesis is to investigate which factors will have impact on customer’ loyalty strategy. And in this study, both markets of China and Sweden will be discussed. Therefore, the focus of this thesis is on the international companies.   Method: As the purposes of this thesis are descriptive and explanatory, the method used in this thesis is the qualitative method. Interview method is used in the thesis to collect data and information. Besides that, case study method is used in the thesis to analyze the data and information.   Findings: when considering how to retain customer loyalty, service quality, communication, advertisements is important for companies. Moreover, trust and commitment are also important for companies. Besides that, there are some differences between Chinese and Swedish markets, such as different attitude towards customer classifying method, and the different reasons of implementing customer loyalty strategy. Finally, some problems of customer loyalty strategy are studied.   Contribution: This research is about customer loyalty strategy and the focus of it is the comparison of Chinese and Swedish markets. Therefore, this thesis helps to better understand customer loyalty strategy in different markets.    Key words: customer loyalty, customer classifying, trust, commitment, communication

The Excellent Enterprise's successful secret is always an important subject discussed by the enterprise operators and the managerial educational field.The scholars used to mention that the ¡§Intangible Resources " have great influence to the organization, and suggest that the characteristic of successful enterprise should contain soft variable such as culture, leadership and so on. Among them, some of the text books and publication of entrepreneur emphasized that the mission is one of the key factors for organizational management.In the past research of how mission influences organization effectiveness, researcher used interview and statistical analysis as major research methods, however, if we use System Dynamics as another approach of research method to establish the enterprise model could present the process of how mission Influence organization effectiveness more specifically. The merit of System Dynamics Model is that all of organizational issue of the management process is dynamical complexity, non-linearity, however, System Dynamics Model simulation process may help the modeler understand the relationship between system structure and behavior, and the static system feedback diagrams will become dynamical ¡§future laboratory". However, because of the soft variable lacking for specific index and method for measurement, it is still a challenge to put the soft variables in the Enterprise Model. This paper adopt System Dynamic as the research method to study how loyalty for mission of a leader in excellence enterprise influence organizational performance ¡V taking Japanese Matsushita Electricity industrial Ltd. Company as the case company to analyze how the mission loyalty affect the soft variables of organization and produce the indirect influence to the organization. By collecting researches of Excellence Enterprise and information of Matsushita Electric Ltd. Company, we constructed the Matsushita Electric Ltd. Company¡¦s System Dynamics Model, and put the soft variables in to model and run the simulation, find out the relationship between Excellence Mission and organizational performance. By discussing how the leader¡¦s Mission loyalty affects the organizational performance indirectly, we can prove that soft variables in organizational business and the System Dynamics modeling cannot be neglected.

The ecological consumer has been a significant and central character in the development of green marketing. In an effort to enhance brand equity and increase consumers’ loyalty, companies are relying on environmental claims. From advances in processes, to product design and packaging materials that diminish waste, companies are more and more emphasizing on sustainability. The findings of previous research aiming to link purchasing and environmental concerns to socio-demographic factors have been generally inconclusive and inconsistent (Peattie, 2001). Therefore, the purpose of this study aims to identify if sustainable packaging can be used as a marketing tool to increase brand equity. In addition, the authors intended to identify who is consuming sustainable products and particularly sustainable packaging. The review of previous research concerning this topic led us to express two hypotheses. First, women are more involved by the purchasing process than men. Second, sustainable consumption is seen as a time consuming activity, economically disadvantageous and stressful (Valor, 2008). Through both a quantitative and a qualitative study we analyzed consumers’ behavior and attitude towards sustainable packaging and green consumption in general. The findings of the study allowed us to conclude that the gap between consumers’ attitude and purchasing decision concerning ecological products in general is important. The main reasons are a lack of communication, promotion and availability regarding these products as well as the high-proposed price. Furthermore, the study confirmed that women are much more involved than men in the consumption decision making process in both “classic and green” purchasing.

The two swedish unions, Akademikerförbundet SSR and Kommunal, have a majority of female participations who mainly work in the public services. The difference between the unions is that one of them only represents members with academic educations and the other has members with lower educations. The aim of this study was to compare the two unions according to the terms exit, voice and loyalty, but also participation and influence. There were 142 participants in this study and 8 participants were interviewed in a pre-study. The result of the study shows that voice is a strong predictor to wellbeing in work life. Influence has the same effect in wellbeing and it is clear that individuals with academic education has a higher degree of influence in the workplace. Although there was a tendency for participants with higher education to have a lower degree of wellbeing. Exit was found to have negative correlation with wellbeing.

Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to study how the hotel chain Radisson SAS works with prolonged customer relations with their business clients, with other words the clients that have business agreements with them. Methods: This study will contain an inductive approach and qualitative methods. The qualitative research method is in the shape of a deep interview with the sales manager of Radisson SAS and qualitative interviews of chosen business clients to the hotel. Results: The results of this investigation show that business clients are controlled by what kind of agreements their company has. The companies sign agreements with hotels and hotel chains that are able to satisfy big parts of their needs, if not all of them. With the help of flexible solutions, a well known brand, and good relations, Radisson SAS has made sure that their business clients have prolonged their agreements. They are a global hotel chain near transports, and business clients feel secure with Radisson SAS.

Purpose – The purpose of this research was to explain the determiners that influence customer loyalty in rural grocery stores with a comparison of Sweden and Spain. Design/methodology/approach – This is a quantitative research using a multi-cross sectional design with an explanatory approach. The data was collected with a questionnaire survey that was distributed using a face-to-face and online method. Findings – The findings of the research revealed significant support for customer perceived value, satisfaction, trust and commitment to influence customer loyalty. The research also confirms that there are differences in customer loyalty regarding rural grocery stores between Sweden and Spain. Research limitations/implications – This thesis extend previous research by testing an adapted conceptual model of customer loyalty in a context of rural grocery stores and explain the determiners of customer loyalty in Sweden and Spain. The limitations of the research are discussed and directions for future research areas are suggested. Practical implications – The study provides rural retailers with suggestions for marketing strategies related to the determiners (i.e. customer perceived value, satisfaction, trust and commitment) that might influence customer loyalty and attract the rural customers. Originality/value – This research adds to the current stream of rural research by investigating how customer loyalty can enhance profitability. This research has originality since it makes a comparison of two countries, which can be of great interest and inspiration for how to maintain and develop rural grocery stores. Lastly, the research is significant as it provides implications to rural retailers as well as Provincial Governments.

Abstract: Background: Sweden is one of the biggest coffee consuming countries in Europe with the average annual coffee consumption per capita as high as 8.2kg. This mass consumption of coffee therefore creates high level of competition amongst coffee providers in the Swedish coffee market. There are numerous coffee shops and even some food chains and retail stores selling their own brand of coffee. This study will focus on Generation Y, as they will soon be the majority of consumers. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and analyze what factors affect Generation Y’s loyalty to coffee shops and examine what forms the basis of Generation Y’s loyalty for coffee shops. Methodology: In this thesis, the research method is based on a quantitative approach using a questionnaire to collect data. The findings are established by using both existing literature and primary data. The questionnaire consists of 432 respondents and 400 respondents’ data was used to answer the research question. The respondents consist only of Generation Y who has lived in Sweden for longer than six months. Conclusion: This study has shown that the most important factor that affects people of Swedish Generation Y to become loyal customers to coffee shops is being provided a comfortable and suitable environment. The second important factor is product quality. The third factor is service. However, for those who are students and unemployed Swedish Generation Y, price is also a factor that could influence their loyalty. Moreover, Coffee shops can use loyalty programs to get their customers’ higher customer loyalty. Key words: Coffee shops, Generation Y, Customer loyalty, Customer satisfaction

The e-commerce is growing among customers and also the companies are more active online. One industry that focuses on customer experience is the online fashion industry. In Sweden, the half of the population has at some time shopped clothes and footwear online. However, for companies to compete against others and to survive in this crowded market, it is important to create e-loyalty. Thereby, the purpose for this study was to evaluate the antecedents of e-loyalty in the online fashion industry. E-loyalty is according to famous researchers one important ingredient to succeed online and stay profitable. Other important ingredients for e-loyalty are e-satisfaction, e-trust and e-service quality. All of these factors have been investigated and evaluate in which degree they affect e-loyalty.   In this master thesis, assessed 212 respondents included in the population. The findings have been tested by following statistical analysis; reliability test, exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis. The result showed that e-satisfaction is the main driver for e-loyalty in the online fashion industry. Thereby, a manager should put main focus in what affect e-satisfaction to increase in e-loyalty in this industry. However, the result from the investigation also stressed an interesting factor, namely responsiveness. This factor was shown to have a significant influence on e-loyalty but also on e-satisfaction and e-trust.

This study investigated the importance that junior and senior job-seeking undergraduates (Millennial generation members) place on transactional and relational work attributes; how ratings vary by gender, experiences with layoff, and intended loyalty; and how well ratings match with actual attributes offered by organizations. Results are discussed in context of psychological contract theory. Students (n = 199) and recent graduates working full-time (n = 180) took separate online survey. Students indicated the importance of various work attributes (Ng, Schweitzer, & Lyons, 2010), loyalty intentions, and other related questions. Graduates answered only work attribute questions related to their current employer. Work attributes were factored into new transactional (IMP-T; µ = .78) and relational scales (IMP-R; µ = .91). Key results indicated that students rated relational work attributes more highly than transactional attributes (p < .001); gender had no effect on importance ratings or intended loyalty; and students’ importance ratings were above the workplace reality.