The study investigates whether different motivation mechanisms can affect the quality of relationship and member loyalty of virtual communities. The particular domain is online games on which players often join affiliated virtual communities to exchange information. A questionnaire was designed for the online survey that resulted in a total of 685 valid responses. The results from the partial least square analysis show that relationship quality as measured by Customer satisfaction, trust and commitment have a mediating effect between motivation mechanisms and member loyalty. Among the motivation mechanisms, financial bonds have no effect on relationship quality but social and structural bonds have significant effects. The findings can be used by practitioners when they run virtual communities and have implications for future research in related topics.

<p>During the 1980s and 1990s, commercial sponsorship grew with a rapid pace with an increase in worldwide spending from $2 billion in 1984 to $18.1 billion in 1997. Also, when the sponsorship market grew the interest amongst business researchers grew and finally became an own topic within business. Further, within marketing there was also a change occurring during the same time. It was an evolutionary paradigm shift from the marketing mix and the 4Ps to Relationship Marketing and the focus on long-term relationships. The marketing mix and the 4Ps had been the dominating model since the 1950s however when industries matured, market demand changed, competition increased and customers became more sophisticated and demanded more. Both the rapid growth within sponsorship and move to Relationship Marketing can mainly be explainedby the developments in Information Technology and globalization.</p><p>However, despite the increasing interest sponsorship and relationship marketing separately,few researchers have tried to combine these two even though several researchers have challenged others. In 2003, Farrelly and Quester studied the relationships between the sponsor and the sponsored. The intentions of the researchers are to extend this research to the relationships between the sponsor and their customers.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to explore how sponsors utilize sponsorship to build and maintain relationships with their customers. The intention is to create a foundation that can be later tested with the sponsors’ customers through a series of propositions. This study is done from the sponsors' perspective and in a B2B context. It is a qualitative research using six of the main sponsors as case studies for HV71, one of the largest ice hockey teams in Sweden. For the data collection the researchers used face-to-face interviews with managers from Husqvarna, Swedbank, Öhrlings PriceWaterhouseCoopers,Nybergs Bil, Ernst&Young and June Emballage.</p><p>The researchers have identified four different ways how sponsors utilize sponsorship to build and maintain relationships with their customers. The sponsors use sponsorship to create meeting places outside the business office, increase communication, add value totheir offerings and predict customer needs. The goal is to increase trust and value because when they increase, the relationship between the sponsor and customer grows stronger.</p>

<p>The customer satisfaction and loyalty for Swedbank have in a recent study shown to be among the lowest for all banks in relation to corporate customers. Since there is not much interaction with small enterprises compared to mediumsized and large enterprises and a vast majority of customers are small corporations, there was a need to focus on this seg-ment and find what they believed was in need of improvement. This study was conducted in cooperation with Swedbank in Gothenburg. The authors worked as consultants with the base of the satisfaction and loyalty study conducted by SKI in October 2006 and performed a case study where 25 randomly chosen small enterprises in the Gothenburg-region were interviewed by telephone.</p><p>The stated purpose of this thesis is to investigate what aspects of relationship quality and service quality Swedbank Gothenburg’s small corporate customers are not fully satisfied with and how to improve them to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty.</p><p>The authors developed a model called the customer loyalty model, identifying the drivers of Total Perceived Relationship Quality and Total Perceived Service Quality which in turn determine an organisation’s image. The image has an impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Four key areas where service failures might occur are the basis for the research questions: the performance of the account manager, the performance of other employees, perception of the bank and perception of the services provided. Further, a fifth research question was posed to answer how to improve the possible lack of satisfaction.</p><p>Based on the empirical findings the authors could conclude that the customers should be the primary focus for Swedbank by developing a stronger serviceoriented culture. A way to improve the problem of the frequency of contact between corporate client and account manager is to divide small corporate clients into sub-groups according to their different needs. Furthermore, the account managers having interest in and knowledge about the corporate clients are of importance. This can be done by visiting clients at their place of business and have continuous education to develop the account managers’ competence. There is a need for customised solutions for different corporate clients and this could be achieved by keeping an on-going discussion with each client. Furthermore, the accessibility of the account managers and the length of the decision-making process need to be im-proved. This can be accomplished by for instance longer opening-hours and more frequent group meetings.</p>

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 94 pages. / Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: This is a qualitative case study conducted to investigate the relationship between consumers who are brand loyal to a certain product and the groups that are formed to bring these enthusiasts together, using the Chevrolet Corvette and its community as a model. Qualitative research lends itself to studying relationships and social situations, in being able to observe and participate in a social context, rather than analyzing it from the outside looking in. By approaching this subject as a case study, an element of flexibility was allowed. This study primarily focuses on one main phenomena, the social groups formed by loyal consumers. The specific context studied is the Chevrolet Corvette's community. / ABSTRACT: By using in-depth interviews of Corvette enthusiasts, owners and company employees, a deeper understanding of why people are loyal to a product and how they use enthusiast clubs to sustain their loyalty will be uncovered. Those interviewed were asked open-ended questions pertaining to their feelings about the community they are a part of, and the brand they are loyal to. A qualitative, ethnographic approach was taken, and interviews were conducted more as conversations than as formal, structured interviews. Through participant observation at various Corvette events, the researcher compared what participants said and what they were observed doing. Participants are from varying backgrounds, ages and genders as to provide a broad base of information. Data gathered were analyzed using grounded theory, a research method that seeks to develop theory that is grounded in data systematically gathered. / ABSTRACT: Grounded theory allows for a continuous interplay between data collection and analysis. Three overarching themes were constructed to organize the data, with various sub-categories to further explain the findings. The results of this study have shown that the object of enthusiasm, in this case the Chevrolet Corvette, is the basis for social interaction between owners and those involved with the car. While the physical car must uphold a superior standard, the consumer loyalty shown in this community is reinforced through interpersonal relationships formed with others sharing a common interest of enthusiasm for the automobile. The research has shown that there is a linkage between media efforts, automobile purchase, and social interaction. A cycle is formed from company executives releasing information and marketing to the public, inspiring consumers to purchase the car, and the community reinforces their purchase decision and fosters their brand loyalty. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Society, Culture, Media & Philosophy, Dept. of Media, 2007. / Bibliography: leaves 281-305.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 165-180).

Social media has provided both companies and customer with new opportunities. Customers are increasingly integrating social media into their daily lives and companies has noticed these new traditional medias and started to take advantage of them through brand communities. The new behavior occurring on brand communities is what research call customer engagement behavior and goes beyond transactional behavior. However, customer engagement has not been fully researched on different social media platforms. The most researched platform to date is Facebook. And with the rapid growth of social media and the constant development of new platforms it is of importance to understand customer engagement behavior on different social media platforms to further being able to adapt to each unique platform. Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the frequency of customer engagement behavior and its affect on perceived relationship benefits and ultimately, relationship outcomes. This based on three different social media platforms where one company were present with brand communities and then compare the outcome of each platform with each other. Hypothesis: 𝐻1 = The frequency of customer engagement behavior leads to perceived relationship benefits of engaging in a brand community. 𝐻2 = Customer perceived relationship benefits have a positive effect on relationship outcomes. Methodology: Cross-sectional online questionnaires distributed on three different social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Analysed using linear regressions. Findings: The findings indicates that the frequency on which a customer engage in engagement behaviors showed no statistical significance on Facebook, however, the frequency of reading messages, visiting the brand community, and purchasing products did show statistical significance on Instagram. Furthermore, the perceived relationship benefits that showed significance for both Facebook and Instagram was practical and economic benefits. While on Facebook social enhancement was considered an important indicator for relationship outcome and entertainment

Conflicts can occur in a variety of brand-relationship contexts, whether pertaining to poor service or product failure or to companies’ violations in regard to moral or legal issues. Though addressing relationship conflicts has become a pervasive issue in brand-relationship research, little is known about factors influencing consumer responses to conflicts. The goal of this research was to address this issue by exploring how consumers utilize their emotional intelligence in coping with problems when conflicts arise. For this purpose, two experiments were performed in this study. The first experiment showed that consumer emotional intelligence (CEI) was critical in predicting coping responses. When encountering conflicts in relationships, consumers who were highly capable in CEI were more likely to direct their emotions positively and productively, and they were less likely to exit the relationships than were those low in CEI. The second experiment further investigated a moderator and mediator of the association identified in the first study. The study demonstrated that the type of conflict moderated the effect of CEI on coping behaviors; the CEI effect on intention to exit the relationship was more pronounced when a conflict had directly caused problems for individual consumers (vs. to society as a whole). The results further demonstrated that consumers’ appraisals of a company’s intention in regard to conflicts mediated the association between CEI and coping responses. Specifically, low-CEI consumers were more likely to attribute negative intentions to the company; therefore, they were more likely to exit the relationship than were high-CEI consumers. This research demonstrated that CEI is an important construct in explaining why some consumers react destructively to relationship conflicts whereas others do not. Findings of this research provide a greater understanding of the role of individual differences in the maintenance and dissolution of brand relationships. / text

This thesis examines the importance of employee perceptions of their organisation's visual corporate identity (VCI) particularly the symbolic 'corporate logo'. Employees' views of the logo reveal their perceptions of the organisation itself (Henderson and Cote 1998:15, Olins 1995:73) so are an important indicator of their positive or negative feelings towards their establishment. Previous research recognises the significance of employees' opinions, but has overlooked their perceptions of the VCI. In education, external marketing (including VCI) is of growing interest but there has been little concern with internal marketing. Methodology A mixed methods, sequential, explanatory case study into a UK independent school was undertaken. Quantitative data was obtained from questionnaires, distributed to the schools' employees and qualitative data from interviews; analysis reveals convergent and divergent findings.Findings The majority of the schools' employees consider the corporate colours and logo important, associate positive meanings with the logo and were proud to be linked to the school by wearing branded items. Employees felt affiliation for the logo and considered the VCI to be strong although responses differed depending upon gender, full or part-time employment, department, seniority and length-of-service. A new model has been developed, the IMP Test, that reveals the perceptions; the importance, meanings, and pride that employees attach to their VCI. Implications These findings reinforce and add to previous research of employee perceptions of their VCI (particularly in education) and it follows, towards their organisation. Utilising this approach, managers can gain a deeper understanding of employee perceptions which has implications for morale and motivation.

I examine the relationship between the electoral security of congressmen, measured as vote margins in the previous election, and the support Members of Congress offer to their party. I develop a theory that predicts safe members will be more willing to support than vulnerable members and leaders demand more loyalty from safe members than vulnerable. This arrangement is rational and beneficial for leaders and both types of members. Using an OLS regression, I find basic support for my theory.