Bibliography: leaves 231-291. This thesis investigates key drivers of sponsorship renewal. The market orientation of sponsors, and their perception of their sponsored entity's (property's) market orientation, are analysed as antecedents of the trust invested by sponsors in the relationship, the level of commitment they exhibit and both the economic and non-economic satisfaction they derive from it. Sponsor economic and non-economic satisfaction and their commitment to the relationship are considered to be the ultimate drivers of the decision to renew. The argument is presented that sponsorship is a form of strategic or co-marketing alliance. The Australian Football League, the leading sponsorship property in Australia, is investigated in the empirical part of the thesis.

Cultivating profitable, long-lasting customer-supplier partnerships is a significant task for today's companies. These relationships bring value-adding benefits, including cost and risk reductions, and bring joint business opportunities (Ravald & Grönroos, 1996; McDonald, et al. 1997). Key account management deals with developing customersupplier partnerships within the business-to-business context. Key account managers are responsible for delivering customised products/services, and defining possible business opportunities for both parties, after carefully selecting buying companies according to their strategic importance for the supplier. However, key account management may be complicated for suppliers to manage especially if the selling companies do not know how to implement a key account management programme appropriately. There have been a number of studies attempting to identify approaches to successful key account management programmes (Millman & Wilson, 1995, Napolitano, 1997, Homburg et al., 2002). Abratt & Kelly (2002) were the first to investigate both buyers' and sellers' perceptions of success factors of a key account management programme. They found that both buyers and sellers hold similar points of view on what a successful key account management programme should contain.This thesis is a replication of Abratt & Kelly (2002), which refined their scale to obtain better reliability assessments and generalisability. Only some of the findings of the original study could be replicated. Six factors were extracted while only three of them were reliable. Some of the items loaded onto the same dimension in the replication as Abratt & Kelly (2002), whereas others did not. The discussion section of the thesis suggests reasons for the difference in findings and suggests future research areas based on this discussion.

In the last decade, the ever increasing pressure of competition faced by businesses has led to the development of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). In short, CRM is the practice of integrating all aspects of business functions for dealing with customers, with the assistance of technology, and with the intention of boosting company profitability. CRM has been widely promoted as a critical contributor to business survival. However, the high failure rate of CRM projects has also attracted research attention and many factors have been discussed as contributing to the success or failure of CRM implementation. This research argues that CRM is not simply a software package or a computer program. CRM, instead, should be perceived as a strategic issue in order to realize its potential. In addition, this study also argues that CRM implementation is affected by organizational, strategic and cultural factors. In particular, this study was conducted within the context of Chinese small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), with company size and culture as two major focuses in this study. SMEs were chosen as this segment has been overlooked in CRM study, yet it represents a great potential for growth in CRM adoption. Chinese culture was chosen as most of CRM studies have been conducted within a western cultural background. The Chinese culture has distinctive characteristics different from western culture, and this has strong influences on business operations. A quantitative method was adopted for this study and a mailed survey was used to collect data to examine the relevance of these factors within this context. Research participants were recruited using a systematic sampling technique through a comprehensive Chinese business directory. Results suggest that there are positive associations between a company’s CRM implementation and its practice of organizational, strategic, and cultural issues. In particular, four organizational issues – organizational integration, executive commitment, system readiness, and resource availability; three strategic issues – vision, planning, and customer-centric culture; and one cultural issue – networking, have an impact on a company’s CRM implementation.

Internet marketing and relationship marketing are becoming prevalent in Australian firms. The advent of the internet has created numerous opportunities for marketing professionals to enhance current marketing practices, including relationship marketing. However, the investigation of marketing relationships in an internet environment is scant. Further, there appears to be no investigation of this phenomenon within the context of Australian service industries. Thus this research attempts to bridge the gap that exists between academia and practitioners by investigating internet-facilitated relationship marketing. Given these gaps in the literature, the research problem investigated in this research is: How does B2B internet use affect inter-firm relationships in service industries? The literature does not investigate this research problem in any depth. However, a framework about internet-facilitated marketing relationship in the extant literature was integrated and synthesised with literature about internet marketing and relationship marketing to arrive at three research issues: RI 1: How does level of internet use affect structural and social bonds in an inter-firm relationship? RI 2: How do structural bonds interact with social bonds in an internet environment? RI 3: How do structural and social bonds determine relationship outcomes in an internet environment? To investigate these three research issues, a combination of qualitative and quantitative two-stage methodological approach was used. The first stage was eleven convergent interviews to build on the extant literature and to further confirm and refine the theoretical framework. In the second stage, a survey methodology was used to test the model about internet-facilitated inter-firm relationships in Australian business internet banking users. Data was analysed and the hypotheses specified in the main model were tested using structural equation modelling techniques. Thus this research involved both theory building and theory testing. The findings of this research have implications for the three research issues. The results for the first research issue showed that the internet has little negative impact on relational bonding in the B2B context. That is, technology-mediated transactions in financial services may not be detrimental to established relationships because trade efficiencies are more of a concern for businesses rather than the social aspects. Information technology-enabled connectivity can facilitate trade efficiency, therefore the relationship. Moreover, the impact of internet use on relational bonds of trust and dependence is moderated by the length of B2B internet use. That is, a longer period of dealing with an exchange partner on the internet facilitates relational bonding. The findings for the second research issue were that most interrelationships between structural and social bonds in an internet environment are in line with the generic literature. The findings for the third research issue are related to the relational outcome as a result of bonding. Although the internet has little direct impact on commitment and intention to stay, it contributes indirectly to the relational outcomes through structural and social bonding. In addition, the findings of this research highlight some important issues in relationship marketing research. That is, inter-relationships of the relational constructs depend on the context in which the relationship exists. The main contribution of this theory building research is the development and confirmation of a final theoretical framework about internet-facilitated inter-firm relationships. That framework is a contribution because it is the first rigorously researched step towards understanding the important confluence of two new and powerful streams of business activity of internet marketing and relationship marketing. This thesis has both theoretical and practical implications in the area of internet marketing and relationship marketing. The framework was built from theory and empirical research to represent this process and provides a foundation for further research.

Bibliography: leaves 231-291. / xiv, 291 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / This thesis investigates key drivers of sponsorship renewal. The market orientation of sponsors, and their perception of their sponsored entity's (property's) market orientation, are analysed as antecedents of the trust invested by sponsors in the relationship, the level of commitment they exhibit and both the economic and non-economic satisfaction they derive from it. Sponsor economic and non-economic satisfaction and their commitment to the relationship are considered to be the ultimate drivers of the decision to renew. The argument is presented that sponsorship is a form of strategic or co-marketing alliance. The Australian Football League, the leading sponsorship property in Australia, is investigated in the empirical part of the thesis. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Commerce, 2002

<p><strong>Aim of the Thesis:</strong> To investigate the practice of using a CRM strategy in football clubs by comparing earlier successful and unsuccessful CRM implementations by football clubs and study fan relationship theories in a large Swedish football club, thereby presenting guidelines on how to further develop a CRM strategy in a Swedish football club.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Methodology: </strong>A quantitative approach and a qualitative approach have been used, first collecting empirical data on supporter views through a questionnaire further strengthened by gathering empirical data through an interview. The quantitative data has been presented with descriptive statistics and the qualitative data has been analyzed using a realist approach.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Theoretical Perspectives:</strong> A literature review has been conducted and resulted in a theoretical framework illustrating the concepts of benefits and risks with CRM, fan relationship marketing, CRM implementation process, CRM systems in football clubs, and supporter loyalty. A research model, “FRM implementation process” has been developed from the theoretical findings. </p><p> </p><p><strong>Empirical Data: </strong>The quantitative empirical data has been collected by distributing a questionnaire to supporters of AIK Fotboll. The qualitative empirical data has been collected through interviews with the head of sales and marketing within AIK Fotboll AB.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Conclusion</strong>:<strong> </strong>A CRM strategy can benefit Swedish football clubs in areas such as to better capture customer data, better communication between the club and its supporters and provide customized offers as long as the supporters are informed about the changes in strategy. In order for Swedish football clubs to successfully implement a CRM strategy they need to ensure adequate financing and management commitment since an unsuccessful implementation can be devastating to a Swedish football club’s finances.</p>

<p>Due to the more and more fierce competition in today’s business, many companies are required to build long-term profitable relationship with customers and to achieve customer loyalty. Therefore, relationship marketing has become more and more important since last decade of 20th century, especially in service industry. There are many different relationship marketing tactics implemented for retaining customer. However, some of those tactics did not affect customer loyalty effectively, and switching behaviors frequently occur among most of targeted customers. Therefore, this study is aimed to investigate the impact of relationship marketing tactics on customer satisfaction and trust, which in turn increase customer loyalty, by focusing on Swedish mobile telecommunication sector. A analytical model is developed as a guildline to test the relationships between relationship marketing tactics, relationship quality (trust and satisfaction) and customer loyalty. </p><p>a quantitative method with deductive approach are chosen in this research. In order to collect primary data, a self-completed questionnaire is designed and randomly sent out by email to the students in Halmstad University. The SPSS for windows is used to process the primary data. The findings shows that Service Quality, Price Perception, and Value Offers have impact on customer loyalty indirectly via the customer satisfaction and trust. Brand image is positively and directly related to customer loyalty. However, switching costs is found to be less correlation with customer loyalty, as well as satisfaction and trust in Sweden telecommunication industry.</p>

<p>Loyalty programs have become an important element of the modern company and its existence can be noticed in every kind of businesses. The aim with loyalty programs is to win customers loyalty in order to keep them away from the competitors. However, there are some issues existing in creating and maintaining long-term relationships, for instance when consumers choose to decline participation in loyalty programs. A qualitative research method with an inductive approach has been used, by using the interview method CIT to collect the empirical data. 82 open-ended interviews were made with respondents from Sweden and Hungary in order to identify possible differences in loyalty program avoidance between the two countries. Based on the answers, a model with factors that indicates loyalty program avoidance was created, which represent the foundation of the literature review. The result of the study has shown that both similarities and dissimilarities between the nationalities exist, where the major difference is preference of convenience and personal issues. The study indicates that the Swedish consumers tend to reject loyalty program offers for the convenience reasons, in terms of store distance and bad service, while the Hungarian consumers are more concerned about their personal integrity, such as trust and privacy. However, similarities that could be clearly observed were issues with commitment, gaining benefits and struggling with time pressure.</p>

<p>Aim: After discussing marketing issues with representatives from a number of companies established on the Chinese market, we came to the conclusion that it would be interesting and useful to further investigate relationship marketing models from a Swedish perspective when doing business in China.</p><p> </p><p>The aim of the study is to highlight, by examples and experiences from firms dealing with or on the Chinese market, what makes up successful marketing between Swedish and Chinese businesses.</p><p> </p><p>Research question: Is relationship marketing with a dash of guanxi the recipe of success for Sino-Swedish businesses?</p><p> </p><p>The result of successful relationship marketing is a marketing network and it is an important asset for companies today. Competition is not between single business units or entities any more but between marketing networks (Kotler et al., 2006).</p><p> </p><p>To get a full view of relationship marketing between Sweden and China, we have also studied the Chinese culture context.</p><p> </p><p>Method: We interviewed 10 firms in various industries. Common for all respondents is an extensive experience of over 5 years of doing business in China. A questionnaire was used as a foundation for the interviews.</p><p> </p><p>In the analysis findings regarding how the respondents have handled their internationalization process are highlighted. Also how they handle the relationship marketing on a market, where guanxi have been a dominating way of doing business.</p><p> </p><p>Result and conclusions: Relationship marketing with a dash of guanxi is the road that most companies take already today and should take if not yet doing so. As we can see from the study, China is not under as strong influence of <em>guanxi</em> as it used to be. Our respondents offer insights and examples of that Chinese businessmen and women are adapting a more global approach to business negotiations. Operating on the Chinese market requires a relationship marketing approach although it is more personalized to better suit the Chinese culture context.</p><p> </p><p>Suggestions for future research:</p><p>* Relationship marketing in China and corruption: how is it handled, avoided, viewed.</p><p>* Relationship marketing in Sweden by Chinese firms: How can Chinese firms succeed on the Swedish market?</p><p>* Deeper research into relationship marketing strategies for Swedish companies in China.</p><p>* Study Swedish firms on the Chinese market today and how they experience the paradoxes mentioned by Fang and Faure (2008).</p><p> </p><p>Contribution of the research: The study offers insights in the actual marketing strategy implementation and how firms with extensive experience from China and the Chinese market approach it.</p>

<p>Relationship marketing is an important part of the new view of communication strategies. The theories around this subject has a general and global perspective on how to manage relations and communication problems. But somehow the local perspective is forgotten. In this thesis we have focused on the local market and which demands it has on the work with relationship management. The purpose of this thesis is to find out how relationship marketing can contribute to create a high valued brand on a local market. In this case the local news and entertainment site Vibb Kalmar.The thesis was carried out by intervening (qualitative method) individuals on three different levels in the field of relationship marketing. One of the most respected professor in the field of relationship marketing. We have also two different consulting-firms and one client each from both of the firms. All located in Kalmar. We have used a theoretical frame of reference based on relationship marketing, service marketing, brand management and market communication. We compared the literature with the collected empirical data to come up with our own conclusions about local relationship marketing. The conclusion shows that some aspects become more important on a local market. Persons behind the brand are very important. The company needs to be active in their network. It´s important to be a part of the community and take their responsibility to be a good citizen. It also gives recommendations on how a local news and entertainment site should work with relationship marketing.</p>