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This research examines the characteristics of successful university - industry relationships. By integrating the research areas of relationship marketing and technology transfer, it attempts to provide a unique contribution to both streams and the emerging literature on university - industry relationships. This thesis argues that conceptualising relationships beyond those between private sector organisations, the current central focus of relationship marketing theory development, is needed in order to mature the discipline. In particular, university - industry relationships offer research opportunities due to their incorporation of fundamentally different organisational cultures. The aim of this research is to identify key drivers of university - industry relationships by taking into account the impact of organisational culture difference and other relevant antecedents, such as individuals engaged in the relationship process. Based on a literature review and initial qualitative research, two conceptual models were developed and subsequently tested using Structural Equation Modelling methods. The first generic model identified the key drivers of satisfaction and intention to renew and examined the influence of organisational compatibility and personal experience on university - industry relationships. The second dyadic model focused on identifying the impact of individual dimensions of organisational culture difference on relationship characteristics and success. Comprising the perspectives of both relationship parties, the dyadic data enabled an advanced reflection of cultural differences and relationship dynamics. Four dimensions were analysed, namely differences in time orientation, market orientation, employee empowerment and corporate flexibility. Both models were analysed in three steps, including path analysis and hypotheses testing, model re - specification and multigroup analysis. Consistent with the literature, trust, commitment and integration were found to positively influence the primary outcome variable, satisfaction, and were thus confirmed as key drivers of successful university - industry relationships. While trust was identified as the strongest driver for satisfaction, commitment emerged as the strongest predictor of intention to renew. Also confirming relationship marketing theory, the results showed interrelationships between these relationship factors : Trust positively affected commitment and integration and commitment strongly and positively influenced integration. The findings further demonstrated that organisational compatibility positively influenced all relationship characteristics. However, only two significant paths were confirmed between the individual dimensions of organisational culture difference and relationship characteristics : Differences in time orientation and corporate flexibility both impacted commitment negatively. Furthermore, market orientation difference directly and negatively affected the relationship outcome measure intention to renew. The results only showed a weak influence of personal experience, the variable measuring the relevance of individuals for university - industry relationships, on commitment. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Commerce, 2006.

Personalization that uses information technology to tailor content and products/services to the preferences and tastes of individual customers has become a useful function in online relationship marketing. Many techniques have been developed, and research on personalized services has increased substantially in recent years. The objective of this research is to propose a relationship-building perspective that treats the relational benefits resulting from personalized services as the important mediated factors that affect customer loyalty. In this research, a theoretical model is proposed to include both cognitive and affective benefits in order to investigate their relative influences on customer loyalty. A controlled laboratory experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of three different personalization tactics: socialness, self-reference, and content relevance. The results showed that personalized services can contribute to customer loyalty by bringing relational benefits to customers, and the impact of affective benefits on customer loyalty is greater than that of cognitive benefits. The findings extend our existing understanding of personalization, and offer valuable information to practitioners on enhancing their website design.

In the wake of globalization of business and stable development of world economics as well, peoples traveling around the world become more and more heavily reliant on airline and travel agent¡¦s assistance. So, the copetition relationship between airlines and travel agents becomes one of very important subjects. In this study, a case of Cathay Pacific Airways in regard to the copetition relationship between airlines and travel agent is discussed. The purpose of this study is, through the interviews, questionnaires, investigation, and LISERL model (Joreskog, 1973), to analyze the results, to understand both influence and performance which the copetition relationship between airlines and travel agents will lead to, and to propose practical suggestions to the airlines industry. The conclusion of the study is listed as follows: 1.The scale of travel agents is statistically positively related to airlines performance, and positively related to sale behavior difference between airlines and travel agents. 2.The elements of the product service and the content of contract can obviously affect the customer relationship, and also affect performance of airlines and travel agents. 3.In a long term, airlines and travel agents would rather to be in cooperation than to be in competition, in order to maintain good win-win relationship to run lucrative business.

Diss.--Universität München, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis covers two distinct measurement development issues and has a third purpose that is to verify the similarities and differences between relationship and service quality (discriminant validity).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-92). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-92). Also available on the Internet.

M.B.A. / Please refer to full text to view abstract