by Mak Ho-Cheung Joseph. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-83). / ABSTRACTS --- p.i / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.ii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.iv / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.vi / CHAPTER / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION / Background --- p.1 / Commercial Banking Industry --- p.3 / Marketing in Commercial Banking --- p.4 / Competitive Environment --- p.6 / Other Problems of Commercial Banks --- p.9 / Relationship Marketing : A Solution --- p.10 / Chapter II. --- LITERATURE REVIEWS / Concepts of Relationship Marketing --- p.11 / Relationship Marketing Banking : Emphasizing on Bank-Client Relationships --- p.16 / Role of Relationship Managers --- p.21 / Chapter III. --- OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY / Objectives of Study --- p.26 / Description of Methodology --- p.27 / Hypothesis --- p.31 / Preliminary Model --- p.35 / Chapter IV. --- ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS / Description of Relationship activities --- p.37 / Test for Hypothesis One --- p.43 / Test for Hypothesis Two --- p.44 / Test for Hypothesis Three --- p.47 / Test for Hypothesis Four --- p.55 / Adjustments to Proposed Model --- p.63 / Chapter V. --- RECOMMENDATIONS --- p.65 / Chapter VI. --- LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH --- p.76 / Chapter VII. --- CONCLUSION --- p.80 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.81 / APPENDIX / Chapter Appendix A : --- Chronological table of terminology usedin quoted articles --- p.84 / Chapter Appendix B : --- Summary of in-depth interview --- p.85 / Chapter Appendix C : --- Descriptive statistics of questionnaire respondents --- p.88 / Chapter Appendix D : --- Sample Questionnaire --- p.90

The characteristic of wildlife trading industry is taking the living animal as its product. Therefore, the wildlife trading process must abide by the internationals and local government laws to fit the trend of global natural convention. In addition, because of the complicated wildlife trading process, including the application of CITES permit, the import and export permits, air transportation, quarantine and customs, wildlife trading industry needs to have long-term partnership, suppliers, dealers, and brokers to make the trading process proceed smoothly and lower the trading cost. By the development of the legal wildlife trade, the animal welfare and ecological balance can be improved. In addition, ¡§Relationship Marketing¡¨ has been one of the most popular marketing tendencies since the early 90s. As times are changed, however, the non-interaction's marketing pattern has gradually declined, and so has the ¡§Relationship Marketing¡¨. Customer service has been emphasized to understand the customers¡¦ demand to develop and maintain long-lasting relationships with customers, and consequently better marketing patterns for business have developed. In the meantime, with the development of information technology, the relationship marketing has provided more opportunities on the internet. This research will analyze the case of ¡¨ Wildlife Asia¡¨. A domestic established international wildlife trading company, whose goal is to try to understand what its relationship marketing strategy is, and discover how it can compete successfully in the global wildlife trading market, and how it can use related strategies to carry on customer relationship management, including: Relationship Marketing strategies, Customer Relationship Management, and Internet Relationship Marketing. This research discovered: 1. This case use relationship marketing strategy to do wildlife trading business, 2. Wildlife trading industry is suitable for relationship marketing strategy. Consequently there are suggestions for this case: 1.There will be more advantage for this case to use relationship marketing strategy continuously, 2. The case can improve its CRM strategy to develop in this industry, 3. The case can use Internet relationship marketing to increase its marketing strategy.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2004. / Advisor: M.M. Head. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-100). Also available via World Wide Web.

In today’s knowledge economy hardly any organisation can address its dynamic nature and competitive advantage as a single organisations. More than ever, organisational survival and growth depends on continuous learning and cooperation. This research examines value creation in relationships between higher education institutions and private business organisations. Integrating literature streams on relation-ship marketing, stakeholder theory and university-industry relationships, the re-search aims to identify key drivers of stakeholder value creation, to better under-stand the interrelationships between the stakeholder values generated and determine which stakeholder values driver relationship outcomes. Overall, this research integrates the stakeholder and relationship perspective (multi-level research) and intents to contribute to further opening up the “black box” of value creation in university-industry relationships by putting stakeholder and relationship value at the centre of the study. Based on a literature review and the integration of the three main literature streams, a conceptual model was developed, forming the basis for an exploratory pre-study aiming to develop a more in-depth understanding of the phenomena. Con-ducting interviews among academics and technology transfer officers, the model was refined before the main, explanatory research step, implemented through a web-based questionnaire among England-based academics, was carried out to test the conceptual model. The model is comprised with three main elements. First, relationship characteristics (common understanding of expectations, commonness of expectations and commitment) drive the value creation for different stakeholders. Second, the value developed for six main stakeholders (the surveyed academic, the academic team, the university, the business partners, students, and society) impacts the academic’s perception of the overall relationship value. Lastly, the overall relationship value, as perceived by the academic positively affects further relationship outcomes (relationship satisfaction, word-of-mouth, intention to renew the relationship, intention to expand UIR activities beyond the current relationship(s)). Using structural equation modelling, the model was analysed and refined based on 903 responses of a self-administered questionnaire. The results show that commitment as well as the common understanding as well as the commonness of expectations are key elements driving stakeholder value creation, consistent with literature. With respect to the interrelationships between the realised and expected values generated for different stakeholders, the university emerged as a central actor in the relationship, positively impacting all other stake-holder values. In addition, all other stakeholder values positively society value with the value generated for the surveyed academic and for the business partner also affecting the value generated for the academic team. The results highlight that the academic’s perception of the overall relationship value is significantly and positively influenced by the value generated for the academic itself, the academic team, the university and society. Value generated for students, as a main target group of universities, as well as value generated for the business partners, as the main stake-holder in the relationship, however, were not confirmed to impact the overall relationship value, as perceived by the academic. In addition to the structural model as presented above, four different models have been developed to examine which stakeholder values drive the four addition relationship outcomes, namely relationship satisfaction, word-of-mouth, intention to renew, and intention to expand. The results show that the outcomes are driven by different sets of stakeholder value with student value driving all outcomes, business value not impacting any outcome and the impact of the others depending on the outcome under study.

Inledning Under många år har det varit svårt för fotbollsklubbarna i allsvenskan att locka publik till sina matcher och de senaste 10 åren har det dessutom byggts nya arenor med större publikkapacitet. För att attrahera fler åskådare till fotbollsmatcherna är marknadsföring en viktig del där problematiken ligger i att det är flera delar som behöver samordnas. Syfte Syftet med studien har varit att kartlägga och beskriva hur fotbollsklubbarna arbetar med olika marknadsföringsstrategier för att locka mer publik till matcherna. Studien grundas på de lag som spelar på fotbollsarenor som byggts eller renoverats de senaste tio åren. Metod Genom relevanta vägval har studiens frågeställning kunnat besvaras. Det genom insamling av material i form av teoretiskt material från litteraturen och genom intervjuer. Studien har utgått från en hermeneutisk forskningsprocess för att tolka det insamlade materialet. Slutsats Fotbollsklubbarna i studien använder sig på något sätt av alla de marknadsföringsstrategier som har presenterats. Det behövs dock läggas mer arbete på att få en bättre balans mellan dem för att kunna skapa en framgångsrik marknadsföring. Lyckas de få en liten höjning av publikantalet kan det i slutändan hjälpa då folk lockar folk.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / Relationship marketing is still in its infancy as a mainstream marketing concept, although it has established itself as an underlying paradigm in modern services marketing. Its importance is recognised to a growing extent with a call for organisations to move from a short-term transactional approach to a long-term relationship one (Kotler, 1992; Grönroos, 1994). From the interviews, it is clear that the directors support the findings in respect of the literature review that service marketing should be centred on the key concept that quality should form an integrated component of every step of the development and delivery of a service bundle and should be based on long-term customer relationship development. From the literature review, and with specific reference to the seven P’s marketing mix and relationship marketing approach, it can be delineated that service marketing practices are the combination of service-bundle development, pricing, process, promotion, place, people, physical evidence and the management of the relationship with the customer through the various relationship marketing practices. This conceptual framework will enable the Firm to categorise its marketing objectives and also to provide a clear description of how the marketing objectives identified will be achieved within a stated timeframe. Therefore, quality within the conceptual framework of marketing is measured through the perception of the customer primarily during two occurrences. The first is during any contact session between the customer and service provider or with one or more of the service provider’s employees and the second is when the service bundle is utilised. In the first instance referred to above, customer contact sessions provide the service provider with the opportunity to engage the customer by way of an interactive process in a social context, thus enhancing social bonds through relationship marketing. It has been accepted in the marketing industry that the relationship component is firmly underpinned by mutual trust. Where a service provider maintains strong trust relations with their customers, the relationships involved generally culminate both in the retention of the customer and in long-term profitability. The second determinant of service-bundle quality (product quality) requires from the service provider the skill and ability not only to develop a service bundle that meets the quality expectation of the customer, but which further extends to the ability of the service provider to ensure the recruitment of employees with the appropriate interpersonal skills, aptitude and service knowledge and to provide them with continuous training, leadership, coaching, development programmes and communication to ensure that they retain the skills and expertise to develop a professional service-bundle offering that meets the customers’ expectations. Consumers make judgements and deliver perceptions of the service provided based on that which is provided by those employees with whom they interact. Consequently, employees drive service value which, in turn, drives customer satisfaction and loyalty, resulting in increased revenue and profit (Hanna & Newman, 2007). It is, therefore, submitted that relationship marketing and quality control in development of the various service bundles by the professional service provider are essential if the Firm wants to obtain a form of competitive advantage over its competitors.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In a global era of growing consumer economies, retailers rely extensively on the exploitation of consumers’ personal and behavioural information, in order to successfully execute and sustain their business models and strategic objectives. The gathering and mining of consumers’ personal and behavioural information represent tremendous potential in the application of relationship marketing tactics, towards consumer intimacy, and ultimately towards competitive advantage. However, in their quest to understand consumers better, retailers need to be acutely aware of consumers’ views regarding the gathering and use of their personal and behavioural information, in order to derive the associated benefits whilst mitigating the risk of alienating consumers. To this end, the main objective of this research assignment was to understand the thoughts and feelings of a selected sample of retail consumers, regarding the use of their personal and behavioural information in relationship marketing tactics. The research aim was achieved through a qualitative exploration of the thoughts and feelings of thirty millennial retail consumers who shared their individual views in written format and small group interviews. Cognitive mapping was used as the central technique for the coding and interpretation of written and interview data, depicting the central themes of consumer rationale, as well as the causal relationships of the concepts, which influenced their sentiment and decisions. The insights produced by the cognitive mappings were triangulated using additional techniques of sentiment analysis and word frequency analysis. The combination of research techniques produced robust overarching insights of universal value, coupled with insights of specific subtleties alluding to consumer groups with differentiated engagement needs. Universal insights included strong negative sentiment whenever consumer participants considered the possibility that retailers with whom they engage on the basis of their personal information could potentially share such personal information with third-party entities outside of their explicit or implicit relationship with a particular trusted retailer. Similarly, the personally intrusive nature of telemarketing as an engagement and communication channel was met with universal disdain at every mention thereof, clearly eliminating it as a viable channel for any retailer who would seek to build and sustain trusted consumer relationships. The sample of participants revealed four broad groups of millennial consumers, each with different preferences of engagement with retailers. The majority of the participants across two groups recognised a conditional and transactional basis for exchanging varying degrees of personal information for a variety of derived benefits. A small group of participants indicated a clear preference towards avoiding engagement on a personal basis and sharing of personal information with retailers. A similarly small group of participants exhibited general openness and willingness to engage retailers and share personal and behavioural information with little restraint or concern. The insights derived from this research assignment provide a solid foundational exploration for future research on the specific and related topics, whilst the application of the cognitive mapping technique provided profound multi-dimensional insights. Businesses stand to gain potential material benefit through the careful consideration of the terms of engagement with their consumers, as provided through the universal and specific insights of this research assignment.

With the increasing expansion of companies into the global markets, Relationship Marketing (RM) has become more significant than ever, drawing to it the interest of scholars and the attention of practitioners. One aspect of the subject, which this research addresses, is the need to understand the nature and importance of relationships across cultures, since such understanding is critical to organizational expansion. The focus of this research is B2B relationship marketing, with cross-cultural marketing as a major component of analysis. Building on and extending relevant cross-cultural theories, this research investigates B2B relationship marketing in a Middle-Eastern telecom company, Saudi Telecom Company (STC), a company that is well placed for providing fertile illustrations of the mechanism of B2B relationship marketing. It is, furthermore, a key company in Saudi Arabia with hundreds of partners worldwide, and its economic importance to the country is second only to SABIC, the state-owned national oil company. Adopting a case study research strategy, the research explores how a growing organization absorbs cultural awareness into its B2B relationships. Data are garnered by interviewing 35 STC managers, 29 STC Small Medium Enterprise SME business partners, and three of STC’s Major Enterprise partners, as well as accessing and analysing secondary data from the company. The findings to date suggest that as the company grows it needs to develop B2B cross-cultural awareness at local and global level. This research extends cross-cultural models which have been developed in a business-to-consumer (B2C) context such as cross-cultural marketing theories proposed by Hall and Hofstede to understand cross-cultural theory in a B2B context. By exploring the role of culture in B2B relationships in the telecom industry in the Middle East in general and Saudi Arabia in particular, in light of a case study conducted on a specific and major company, STC and its global partners, and by investigating and assessing how it conducts its B2B relationships, this research aspires to extend the understanding of cultural awareness in B2B relationship and thereby to make a useful contribution to scholarship.

Abstract Customer relationship management as a strategic marketing concept has gained tremendous interest among researchers and practitioners in recent times. Within the last two decades a significant number of research works have been carried out on various issues relating to customer relationship management. However, few empirical studies on market orientation and performance have been established in the Ghanaian banking sector. In an effort to contribute to the existing customer relationship management literature, a study of Intercontinental bank Ghana was conducted. A framework of customer relationship management was designed to guide the study. Specifically, this study examines the customer relationship marketing strategies of banks in a developing country like Ghana using Intercontinental bank as a case study. The study employed quantitative research techniques. Semi-structured questionnaire was designed for the study. The findings show that the bank is doing well by maintaining the relationship it initiates with its clients but must work on improving the number of contact time with them as e-CRM provides them with the opportunity to do so. However, a significant finding from the study is the realization that majority of respondents were willing to recommend the bank to others an indication that they were happy with the level of service at the bank. Although significant portion of those who considered the possibility of leaving indicated that they will do so because of delayed transactions. It is in the light of this that the research is said to play a significant role in the banking sector and for the nation as a whole. / P.O.Box 3077, Kaneshie, Accra Ghana. 0233 244184980/0233 271015288

Title The impact of gender and age on customer loyalty – a quantitative study of Swedish customers’ experiences of a loyalty program Authors Sara Follin & Viktoria Fransson Background Building customer relationships could be done by using loyalty programs; programs which involves activities for enhancing customer loyalty (Ou, Shih, Chen & Wang, 2011). To use loyalty programs as relationship marketing tactics has become popular and it is frequently used in the grocery retailing industry (Noble & Phillips, 2004). Customer loyalty differences might be influenced by customers’ gender and age (Kuruvilla, Joshi & Shah, 2009; Patterson, 2007). It is expected that females tend to be more loyal than males, and that older customers tend to be more loyal than younger generations (Patterson, 2007; Ndubisi, 2007). Purpose The purpose of this study is to describe the impact of gender and age on customer loyalty in the grocery retailing industry. Theory & Concepts Relationship marketing, Loyalty program, Customer loyalty, Gender differences in customer loyalty, Age differences in customer loyalty Methodology This is a descriptive study with a quantitative and deductive research approach. The research strategy was survey, and data was collected from 216 respondents through a questionnaire. Data was collected around the loyalty program Willys+, which formed the sample of this study. Conclusion Customers’ gender could be one variable influencing and impacting customer loyalty, however age is not. Gender impacting customer loyalty, could be explained by potential differences in how females and males choose to shop in store as well as by the fact that the majority of the members in the loyalty program were females. Loyalty among customers belonging to different age group did not have any significant differences.