The current literature indicates that research concerning the area of industrial interorganisational relationships (lORs) and relationship marketing (RM) in an international context is growing in size as well as importance, and is regarded by many as constituting a paradigmatic shift in contemporary marketing thought. The study of lORs, however, has suffered from empirical neglect, particularly in an international context. The extant literature is unclear concerning the development process of relationships. In particular, the antecedents of commitment in affectively committed relationships (positive attachment) and calculatively committed relationships (negative attachment) and their performance outcomes, the causes of dissolution in previously committed relationships and the impact national culture has on the process when it traverses national borders is not well understood. Therefore, the primary objectives of this study were to investigate the stages of the development process of international lORs, and to determine the level of influence national culture exerted on this process. Two stages of empirical research using a mixed methodology were conducted. The first stage of fieldwork -an exploratory case study approach -used seven in-depth interviews with UK. import/export executives in charge of relationship development within their respective companies. The first stage of fieldwork was used to examine the stages of international lOR development and the influence national culture exerts on it in order to develop a set of hypotheses for subsequent testing. Stage two -a mail survey approach was mailed to 3000 UK import/export executives and used data from 322 questionnaires to test a set of hypotheses developed from the first stage of fieldwork. The study had significant findings in three key areas. Firstly, the research identified that the antecedents of commitment in affectively and caculatively committed relationships differed significantly and furthermore, relationships based on affective commitment enjoyed relatively greater levels of performance outcomes in comparison to relationships based on calculative commitment. Secondly, the study identified the causes of dissolution in previously committed relationships in four categories: buyer factors, supplier factors, competitor factors, and environmental factors. The findings also indicated that relationship dissolution could be classified in three ways: full exit, partial exit and temporary exit, and that dissolution was influenced by the motive for commitment prior to dissolution. The period of time spent in dissolving relationships was often found to be lengthy and was influenced by five categories of factors that impede partners' speed of exit. Finally, the study applied the assumptions of Hofstede (1980; 1991) to examine the extent to which national culture affects relationship development when it crosses national borders. The findings revealed little concrete evidence to suggest that national culture has a strong influence on international business relationships. International business relationships were, however, susceptible to factors such as infrastructure barriers and political barriers that were obstacles to foreign market success. The thesis contributes to current knowledge by offering the first empirically supported model of lOR development from pre-formation to dissolution in the extant literature; principally, identifying the antecedents of effective and ineffective relationships and also the stages of dissolution when relationships dissolve. The national culture literature within the domain of Marketing, and in particular, the literature concerning lORs, is advanced by suggesting that Hofstede's (1980; 1991) cross-cultural assumptions may not impact significantly on international lORs in a manner prescribed by Hofstede. In order to achieve the primary research objectives a number of scales were operationalised including scales to measure the influence of national culture on lORs, and aspects of relationship development including a multi-dimensional scale to measure trust. The study offers a number of recommendations for practitioners, and presents a number of future research directions. These are principally, to identify the antecedents of calculative commitment (that are hitherto unknown), and incorporate variables that may legitimately act as antecedents of commitment not examined in this study.

This study provides an understanding on how Relationship Quality is conceptualised in business-to-business marketing relationships. It investigates the relationships of Jordanian Banks with their small and medium sized enterprise (SMEs) customers in terms of Commitment, Satisfaction, Trust, Communication, Transparency, Understanding, and Cooperation. It examines the antecedents and outcomes of the quality of corporate customer relationships by developing a conceptual model which empirically tests this relationship. This research builds and validates a research model based on the literature survey and uses a mixed methods approach. Qualitative data were gathered through in-depth interviews to achieve the goal of refining the initial research model. The second stage is a quantitative empirical study that uses a questionnaire and tests the empirical model generated in the first stage. This integration of methods provides a more complete view of this emerging area of marketing theory. Using Structural Equation Modelling; research findings support the use of a secondorder relationship quality construct consisting of Trust, Commitment, and Satisfaction as a direct outcome of a relationship and is named 'Attitudinal Loyalty'. Antecedents including; Transparency, Communication, Understanding and Cooperation were found to have a positive impact on relational outcome in a business-to-business context in Jordan. The importance of Transparency emerged as one of the most significant determinants of Relationship Quality, which is considered to be a new finding and not common among previous studies. Communication appears to make the biggest contribution overall and have direct and indirect relationships with other variables. It is therefore a major source of success in a business relationship. This research has several implications for the theory and practice. An important issue is the affects on change management. It requires the establishment of business communications to strengthen existing relationships and to form new ones. This implies developing an interactive approach with other parties. This study gives the banking industry an insight for developing their marketing strategy. It also provides a tool to assess the portfolio of relationships, which helps in targeting specific customers. Furthermore, Transparency in the flow of information imposes cultural change. Studying the Jordanian market can help to provide an insight into an emerging economy. Several qualitative findings showed that the relationship between banks and their small and medium enterprises is interesting. All this enriches and adds to the originality of this work and contributes to existing theory by investigating how relationships between partners can be enhanced.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-12T20:32:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTACAO - ALEXANDRINA.pdf: 623898 bytes, checksum: 5d198d1473d6a49f4dcb85bde29939e2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-12-14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / It demonstrates to the current form of the relationship between Wiest Sistemas Automotivos and its customers. Search to know the satisfaction degree how much to the given services and leaving of these opinions tool model elaborates on-line objectifying to improve the relationship with the customers. The present work suggests the tool adoption on-line to facilitate the communication with customers in a plant of automotivos components. The competitiveness of the companies presents fort linking with the quality of the relationship with the customer. To compete in real time she is necessary to endow the company with ways that allow to know and to become related of form each more efficient time with the customers. It discourses on the information technology which is seen as the communication facilitator making possible the capacity to plan and establish links through feedback systems providing the interactiveness and conectiveness between the institution and the client. It analyses the marketing relationship as the successful key to achievement, and mainly the clients faithfulness. / A competitividade das empresas apresenta forte ligação com a qualidade do relacionamento com o cliente. Para competir em tempo real é preciso dotar a empresa de meios que permitam conhecer e relacionar-se de forma cada vez mais eficiente com os clientes. O presente trabalho sugere a adoção de ferramenta on-line para facilitar a comunicação com clientes em uma fábrica de componentes automotivos. Demonstra a forma atual do relacionamento entre Wiest Sistemas Automotivos e seus clientes. Busca saber o grau de satisfação quanto ao serviços prestados e à partir destas opiniões elabora modelo de ferramenta on-line objetivando melhorar o relacionamento com os clientes. Discorre sobre a tecnologia da informação ser vista como a facilitadora de comunicação possibilitando a capacidade de melhor planejar e estabelecer vínculos por sistemas de feedback propiciando a interatividade e conectividade entre ela e o cliente.

The Master's Thesis deals with Customer Relationship Management. The aim is to describe and analyze the CRM in a particular company and make suggestions for improvement. The Master's Thesis is divided into two parts, theoretical and practical. The theoretical part explains the theoretical knowledge of CRM. In the practical part is described and analyzed the mode of operation of the company T-Mobile with a focus on CRM. Theoretical basis is based on the available literature and other information sources. The practical part is based on interview with the company employee, customers and internal documents of the company.

Social commerce (s-commerce) relies on social media to support the buying and selling activities between customers and sellers. S-commerce sites have nowadays enabled their sellers to form their individual community, constitutes invited members of other shoppers, serving as trusted agents or targets and share shopping information and experience with their new customers. This study termed this new facet of communities as social commerce individual vendor community (SCIVC). A recent business paradigm of s-commerce sites indicates that customers spend a little time with s-commerce sellers and/or members in SCIVC, and thus swift trust, a quickly formed trust in a new relationship, deems be more appropriate representing as a basis of their trust building formulated. From the perspective of trust transfer theory, this thesis firstly develops the swift-based trust transfer process model and then examines how both swift trusts factors of individual sellers and members in SCIVC would affect customer trust in s-commerce sites. Secondly, this thesis verifies how the social support affects the model constructs of the swift-based trust transfer process, and subsequently how they further affect relationship outcomes on s-commerce sites. In this thesis, we quantified social support based on functional customer orientation construct and relational customer orientation construct; whereas respective swift guanxi and swift credibility constructs used to measure factors of swift trust factor between a customer with their seller and between a customer with their members of SCVIC. Lastly, we measured relationship outcomes by the following factors: repurchase intention, social shopping intention (i.e. measured by WOM adoption), and social sharing intention (i.e. measured by WOM intention). Based on a survey of 287 s-commerce shoppers from a s-commerce site - WeChat, our results revealed that the customer trust in s-commerce sites can be transferred from both respective swift trusts. This implies that their trust can be influenced by s-commerce parties, that are individual sellers and members of SCVIC. Our results also showed that the proposed social support factors, namely functional and relational customer orientation, both have mainly a positive relationship on respective swift guanxi, swift credibility, and customer trust factors, and subsequently influenced the three proposed factors of relationship outcomes. Exceptional insignificant cases included the relationship between relationship customer orientation and customer trust, the relationship between swift guanxi and WOM adoption and the relationship between swift credibility and WOM intention. In conclusion, this thesis makes three main contributions. First, it confirms consumer trust in s-commerce sites can be transferred from their sellers via guanxi trust and members in SCVIC via credibility trust. Second, it confirms functional and relational customer orientation have a profound total effect on both the proposed relationship mediator of trust and relationship outcomes. Lastly, it confirms the proposed customer orientation constructs and relationship mediator of trust promote not only s-commerce shopping behavior through collaborative sharing and social shopping but also individual-based repeat buying decisions.

This study provides an understanding on how Relationship Quality is conceptualised in business-to-business marketing relationships. It investigates the relationships of Jordanian Banks with their small and medium sized enterprise (SMEs) customers in terms of Commitment, Satisfaction, Trust, Communication, Transparency, Understanding, and Cooperation. It examines the antecedents and outcomes of the quality of corporate customer relationships by developing a conceptual model which empirically tests this relationship. This research builds and validates a research model based on the literature survey and uses a mixed methods approach. Qualitative data were gathered through in-depth interviews to achieve the goal of refining the initial research model. The second stage is a quantitative empirical study that uses a questionnaire and tests the empirical model generated in the first stage. This integration of methods provides a more complete view of this emerging area of marketing theory. Using Structural Equation Modelling; research findings support the use of a secondorder relationship quality construct consisting of Trust, Commitment, and Satisfaction as a direct outcome of a relationship and is named ¿Attitudinal Loyalty¿. Antecedents including; Transparency, Communication, Understanding and Cooperation were found to have a positive impact on relational outcome in a business-to-business context in Jordan. The importance of Transparency emerged as one of the most significant determinants of Relationship Quality, which is considered to be a new finding and not common among previous studies. Communication appears to make the biggest contribution overall and have direct and indirect relationships with other variables. It is therefore a major source of success in a business relationship. This research has several implications for the theory and practice. An important issue is the affects on change management. It requires the establishment of business communications to strengthen existing relationships and to form new ones. This implies developing an interactive approach with other parties. This study gives the banking industry an insight for developing their marketing strategy. It also provides a tool to assess the portfolio of relationships, which helps in targeting specific customers. Furthermore, Transparency in the flow of information imposes cultural change. Studying the Jordanian market can help to provide an insight into an emerging economy. Several qualitative findings showed that the relationship between banks and their small and medium enterprises is interesting. All this enriches and adds to the originality of this work and contributes to existing theory by investigating how relationships between partners can be enhanced. / Al-Balqa ' Applied University

Na medida em que o relacionamento comercial entre os países tem se tornado a base para o desenvolvimento do mercado mundial e das nações, evidencia-se a necessidade de se estudar as iniciativas empresariais que potencializam a ocorrência e continuidade de negócios produtivos entre as diversas partes envolvidas no processo comercial. Sob a ótica do marketing internacional, é possível sintetizar que as relações comerciais se estabelecem de duas formas: diretamente, onde a relação comercial entre empresas exportadoras e empresas importadoras acontece sem o apoio de uma organização intermediária; e indiretamente, onde uma ou ambas as partes optam por serviços intermediários de uma empresa especializada denominada empresa comercial exportadora. Visando compreender os elementos constituintes do relacionamento dos exportadores brasileiros com tais organizações intermediárias, bem como os níveis deste envolvimento, considerando-se ainda o vasto universo das diferentes características de negócio de cada empresa, foi realizado um trabalho qualitativo exploratório por meio de entrevistas em profundidade com seis empresas comerciais exportadoras e quatro empresas fornecedoras inseridas no município de Ribeirão Preto. Por meio deste estudo, pôde-se concluir que a dinâmica do marketing internacional sob a ótica do relacionamento é ainda pouco explorada. Verificou-se que as características do modelo de negócio da empresa influenciam diretamente na adoção, continuidade e no término do relacionamento, e que, a presença e intensidade dos elementos deste relacionamento dependem diretamente do envolvimento resultante da parceria. / The international commercial relationships has become the base for the development of the world-wide market and the nations, it provides the necessity to study the enterprise initiatives that potentialize the occurrence and continuity of success business among several parts involved at the commercial process. At the marketing point of view, its possible to establish commercial relations in two ways: the direct, in which the commercial relation between export companies and import companies happens without the support of an intermediary agent; and the indirect, in which one or both parts opts for intermediary services of a specialized company commonly named trading companies. To understand the elements that constitutes the relationship between Brazilian exporters and trading companies, as well as the levels of that involvement, considering too the complex enterprises characteristics, it has realized an exploratory qualitative study with depth interviews among six trading companies and four supplier companies at the Ribeirão Preto city. The conclusion is that the dynamics of the international marketing relationship are still little explored. It was verified that the business company model characteristics influence directly in the adoption, continuity and in the ending of the relationship. Besides, the elements presence and intensity of this relationship depend directly on involvement of the partnership.

Na medida em que o relacionamento comercial entre os países tem se tornado a base para o desenvolvimento do mercado mundial e das nações, evidencia-se a necessidade de se estudar as iniciativas empresariais que potencializam a ocorrência e continuidade de negócios produtivos entre as diversas partes envolvidas no processo comercial. Sob a ótica do marketing internacional, é possível sintetizar que as relações comerciais se estabelecem de duas formas: diretamente, onde a relação comercial entre empresas exportadoras e empresas importadoras acontece sem o apoio de uma organização intermediária; e indiretamente, onde uma ou ambas as partes optam por serviços intermediários de uma empresa especializada denominada empresa comercial exportadora. Visando compreender os elementos constituintes do relacionamento dos exportadores brasileiros com tais organizações intermediárias, bem como os níveis deste envolvimento, considerando-se ainda o vasto universo das diferentes características de negócio de cada empresa, foi realizado um trabalho qualitativo exploratório por meio de entrevistas em profundidade com seis empresas comerciais exportadoras e quatro empresas fornecedoras inseridas no município de Ribeirão Preto. Por meio deste estudo, pôde-se concluir que a dinâmica do marketing internacional sob a ótica do relacionamento é ainda pouco explorada. Verificou-se que as características do modelo de negócio da empresa influenciam diretamente na adoção, continuidade e no término do relacionamento, e que, a presença e intensidade dos elementos deste relacionamento dependem diretamente do envolvimento resultante da parceria. / The international commercial relationships has become the base for the development of the world-wide market and the nations, it provides the necessity to study the enterprise initiatives that potentialize the occurrence and continuity of success business among several parts involved at the commercial process. At the marketing point of view, its possible to establish commercial relations in two ways: the direct, in which the commercial relation between export companies and import companies happens without the support of an intermediary agent; and the indirect, in which one or both parts opts for intermediary services of a specialized company commonly named trading companies. To understand the elements that constitutes the relationship between Brazilian exporters and trading companies, as well as the levels of that involvement, considering too the complex enterprises characteristics, it has realized an exploratory qualitative study with depth interviews among six trading companies and four supplier companies at the Ribeirão Preto city. The conclusion is that the dynamics of the international marketing relationship are still little explored. It was verified that the business company model characteristics influence directly in the adoption, continuity and in the ending of the relationship. Besides, the elements presence and intensity of this relationship depend directly on involvement of the partnership.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-07T14:46:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1359899 bytes, checksum: b6f2dbe090ba76bbd7768d92cd30d0e8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-02 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The relationship which has been established in the cyberculture between companies and their audience has been characterized as a communicational phenomenon redesigned from the practices provided by cyberculture, as well as by the process of mediatization. More than a relation of products and services purchase and sale, marketing relationship in contemporary communication presents itself as a long term and intense relationship between participants. Now companies constant search for profits results in concerns about communication flows, with the participation of consumers and, consequentely, with the relationship with their consumers. This situation happens due to the release of the emission, connection and world conversation, considered as the principles of cyberculture, which have allowed marketing relationships in the web as a trend in digital medias, which, in turn, appeal to the inclusion of brands as lovemarks . Nike Plus project, case studied in this work, represents these phenomena by enhancing the exchange of information, the interaction and the affective involvement between company and participant consumers. By relating consumerism and cybercultural communication with marketing relationship, we aim at understanding the benefits for the parties involved and the implicit conditions in this relationship, besides identifying in which ways and aspects Nike Plus is included in relation to companies and its audience. Thus, studies about mediatization (practices which mediatize society s daily life and expand media performance by creating a new environment) are essential to contextualizing the present culture of participation, which, in turn, implies in a broader performance rather than mere consumerism of communication contents by consumers. For these reasons, there is a change in the relationship established with the companies, as well as with the own consumerism culture. Based on this perspective, we focus on Nike Plus case study, as an evidence of a phenomenon which has gained momentum in cyberculture, by representing the comtemporary settings of communication and consumerism. / O relacionamento praticado na cibercultura entre empresas e seus públicos vem se destacando como um fenômeno comunicacional que foi reconfigurado a partir das práticas proporcionadas pela cibercultura, bem como pelo processo de midiatização. Mais do uma relação de compra e venda de produtos e serviços, o relacionamento mercadológico apresenta-se na comunicação contemporânea como uma relação duradoura e intensa entre os participantes. A busca constante pelo lucro por parte das empresas implica que haja a preocupação com os fluxos de comunicação, com a participação dos consumidores e, consequentemente, com o relacionamento com os mesmos. Isto porque a liberação da emissão, a conexão e a conversação mundial, considerados os princípios da cibercultura, têm permitido que os relacionamentos mercadológicos que ocorrem na rede se apresentem como uma tendência das mídias digitais, que apelam para a inserção das marcas como lovemarks. O projeto Nike Plus, estudo de caso deste trabalho, representa estes fenômenos ao potencializar a troca de informações, a interação e o envolvimento afetivo entre a empresa e consumidores participantes. Ao relacionar o consumo e a comunicação na cibercultura ao relacionamento mercadológico, objetivamos compreender os benefícios para as partes envolvidas e as condições implícitas neste relacionamento, além de identificar de que forma e em que aspectos o Nike Plus se inclui na dinâmica cotidiana das empresas e dos seus públicos. Para isso, os estudos a respeito da midiatização (práticas que midiatizam o cotidiano da sociedade e que ampliam as atuações da mídia criando um novo ambiente) são fundamentais para contextualizar a atual cultura da participação, o que, por sua vez, implica em uma atuação mais ampla do que o mero consumo de conteúdos comunicacionais por parte dos consumidores. Esse fato altera a relação estabelecida com as empresas, bem como com a própria cultura de consumo. Baseado nesta perspectiva, contemplamos o estudo de caso Nike Plus como um indício de um fenômeno que vem ganhando forças na cibercultura e que retrata as configurações da comunicação e do consumo contemporâneo.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T13:53:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 GilmaraMC.pdf: 363439 bytes, checksum: 792afb65d78c313727804b12b262a810 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-09-04 / The present report is the result of an applied research in the educational entities of the third sector, aiming to demonstrate whether the financial influences the perception of users on the image of those entities. For both used the prospect of integrative marketing relationship adapting to and developing a set of indicators which bore the measurement of images from the model of Machado et al (2005) and Kotler and Fox (1994). The sample included a total of 187 parents and financial responsibility in 03 (three) institutions of education in Natal / RN. These data were processed by multivariate statistical analysis, factor analysis, linear regression, analysis of cluster and discriminant analysis. The factor analysis also identified 6 images perceived by users of services. Next were the relationships of cause and effect between the financial and images formed. In discriminant analysis, was identified two distinct groups of parents and guardians with financial perceptions similar and well defined. The result of the work shows that the differential level of financial participation of parents and guardians not influence the formation of the images formed from educational institutions of the third sector / Neste trabalho apresenta-se o resultado de uma pesquisa aplicada nas entidades educacionais de terceiro setor, com o objetivo de demonstrar se a participa??o financeira influencia a percep??o dos usu?rios quanto ? imagem dessas entidades. Para tanto utilizou-se a perspectiva integrativa do marketing de relacionamento adaptando-se e desenvolvendo um conjunto de indicadores que suportassem a mensura??o das imagens a partir do modelo de Machado et al (2005) e Kotler e Fox (1994). A amostra contemplou um total de 187 pais e respons?veis financeiros em 03 (tr?s) institui??es de ensino na cidade de Natal/RN. Esses dados foram tratados atrav?s de an?lises estat?sticas multivariadas, an?lise fatorial, regress?o linear, an?lise de cluster e an?lise discriminante. A an?lise fatorial possibilitou identificar 6 imagens percebidas pelos usu?rios dos servi?os. Em seguida foram observadas as rela??es de causa e efeito entre a participa??o financeira e as imagens formadas. Na an?lise discriminante, identificou-se dois grupos distintos de pais e respons?veis financeiros com percep??es semelhantes e bem definidas. O resultado do trabalho demonstra que o n?vel diferenciado de participa??o financeira dos pais e respons?veis n?o influencia na forma??o das imagens formadas das institui??es educacionais do terceiro setor