The overall purpose of this research was to add to existing theory of quality pertaining to the service provider's perception of quality. Quality in the service industry is difficult to assess because of the intangible, heterogeneous and labor intensive nature of services. In addition, personnel have varying perceptions of delivered quality based on their position within the organizational hierarchy. This study enhanced the Service Quality Model developed by Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman (1988). An additional gap ("gap 6") was hypothesized and investigated. This gap describes the differences in perceived delivered quality by employees at different organizational levels (e.g., managerial, supervisory, and non-management employees) across different market segments. The researcher proposed that "gap 6" has a significant impact on total perceived delivered quality. The survey instrument addressed five dimensions of overall quality: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. The survey was administered to employees from hotels representing three market segments located within the same metropolitan area and managed by the same company. A 3 X 3 factorial design was used with three organizational levels (managers, supervisors, and hourly employees) and three lodging market segments (luxury, business-traveller, and long-term/suite). Data analyses included descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Tukey's Multiple Comparison Test.

M.Comm. / Organisations could previously succeed on the basis of having customers, but now customers are more educated and aware of their rights. This makes them demanding in their service expectations and affect their perceptions of the service rendered. Physical evidence is one of the 7 P’s in marketing a service. The service that is to be marketed has to be developed according to demand by market segment. Marketing the service is essential to differentiate the organisation’s service from other similar services, using the correct competitive advantage. Physical environment in a health care setting have a significant effect on customer satisfaction, perceived service quality, intention to re-patronize and willingness to recommend. Physical evidence is the servicescape and consists of the interior and exterior environment in a facility Hospitals and hospital environments are dependant on the physical evidence in their facilities and this is often the deciding factor when it comes to choice of a facility. Although the independent doctors play a role in South Africa when it comes to choice of a facility, it is often the patient that chooses the facility on their perceptions of previous experience and word of mouth. Service quality is the difference between expectations and perceptions of the outcomes experienced by the customers. Service quality is essential for customer service and customer services are an essential part of services in the hospital and hospital environment. Although physical evidence was chosen as the dimension for the research, physical evidence is only one dimension of service quality. Other dimensions include reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. A questionnaire was formulated based on the five above dimensions of the SERVQUAL developed by Parasuraman to evaluate the perceptions of patients in a maternity unit in a hospital setting to determine the effect by changing the physical evidence. The outcome of the study identified important aspects that can be utilized in managing an organisation in the health industry. It was identified that adequate seating around a bed is always important for patients in any circumstances, noise levels must be acceptable at all times, the décor in a maternity does influence the perception of service quality, patient’s records kept up to date by the nursing staff are seen as adequate in any physical environment and patients perceive the nurses as having their best interest at heart. This study has shown its importance through the use of a Quasi-experiment that physical evidence is an important dimension in the perception of service quality for patients in a maternity unit in the private health sector. This should be considered by management for future planning in the strategies of an organisation in the healthcare industry.

M.Comm. / The objectives of this study are: - to determine the perceptions of the internal client relative to his requirements of the service being delivered, - to determine the specific areas in which there are shortcomings in the delivering of the services, and - to make recommendations for provision of better service. The respondents who participated in the study, are the managers of Telkom in the Witwatersrand area. The technical support services are delivering a support service to Telkom in maintaining the infrastructure of its network (power systems, air conditioning systems and electronic cards) and the production of various products of plastic and steeL The viability of the workshops will depend on delivering a quality service to its clients that meets their minimum requirement of expected performance. Data collection took place by using the SERVQUAL-questionnaire. This questionnaire is based on the five dimensions of service quality that were identified in a study by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985), namely reliability, reaction, insurance, empathy and tangibles. The managers were required to complete the questionnaire which was sent by E-mail A software program was used to process the results. The results indicated a negative satisfaction index and the conclusion could be drawn that the workshops do not meet expectations of the clients. The satisfaction gap is the difference between the perception of the client of the service that is delivered and the minimum requirements expected of that service. The reliability dimension is rated the worst of the five dimensions, where the respondents felt that the details of the timing of the delivery of the service are insufficient. The tangible dimension is rated the second lowest of the five dimensions. The two most important areas that require attention, agree the premises of the workshops and the documentation which accompanies the delivery of the service.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management / In order to provide an effective legal service, all attorney must, inter alia, be an effective manager and service provider. Competencies are characteristics that are causally related to effective performance. The study investigated the managerial and service competencies which attorneys require to perform effectively. In addition, the perceived training needs of attorneys in the identified competencies were investigated. The competencies were initially identified by means of a literature review and interviews with senior members of the legal profession. The thirty-one competencies so identified formed the basis for a questionnaire which was administered to practising attorneys. The 85 respondents rated the importance of the competencies and determined the need for training in these competencies. The survey revealed that twenty-nine competencies were considered important for effective management and service provision. The competencies were ranked in order of importance. / AC 2018

Shu Yin Man. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-75). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS / ABSTRACT / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS / LIST OF TABLES / Chapter CHAPTER I --- INTRODUCTION / Chapter 1.0 --- Overview --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- The Research Objective --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- The Conceptual Model --- p.4 / Chapter 1.4 --- Significance of This Study --- p.5 / Chapter 1.5 --- Outline of This Paper --- p.7 / Chapter CHAPTER II --- REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE / Chapter 2.0 --- Overview --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1 --- Review of Relevant Past Studies --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2 --- The Conceptual Framework --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- The more contemporary view of attitude model --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Rational appeals for reducing risk that consumers perceive --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Emotional appeals for changing consumer's feelings towards an attitude object --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3 --- The Conceptual Model --- p.15 / Chapter 2.4 --- The Causal Relations Among Constructs and Hypothesis --- p.18 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- "The Causal Relations between Information, Feelings and Beliefs" --- p.18 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- "The Causal Relations between Feelings, Beliefs and Attitude towards the service performed by disabled service staff" --- p.20 / Chapter 2.4.3 --- The Causal Relations between Attitude towards the service performed by disabled service staff and the Intention to use such service --- p.22 / Chapter 2.4.4 --- The moderating effect of types of Job --- p.23 / Chapter 2.5 --- Summary --- p.25 / Chapter CHAPTER III --- RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY / Chapter 3.0 --- Overview --- p.26 / Chapter 3.1 --- The Research Design --- p.26 / Chapter 3.2 --- The Sample and Sampling Procedure --- p.27 / Chapter 3.3 --- Data Collection Procedures --- p.28 / Chapter 3.4 --- Manipulations --- p.30 / Chapter 3.5 --- Operationalization of Constructs --- p.31 / Chapter 3.6 --- Data Analysis --- p.34 / Chapter 3.6.1 --- Manipulation Checks --- p.34 / Chapter 3.6.2 --- MANOVA analysis --- p.35 / Chapter 3.6.3 --- MANOVA by Structural Equation Modeling --- p.36 / Chapter 3.7 --- Research Activities --- p.37 / Chapter 3.7.1 --- Focus Group Interview --- p.37 / Chapter 3.7.2 --- Pretest --- p.38 / Chapter 3.7.3 --- The Main Study --- p.39 / Chapter 3.8 --- Summary --- p.39 / Chapter CHAPTER IV --- ANALYSIS AND RESULTS / Chapter 4.0 --- Overview --- p.40 / Chapter 4.1 --- Manipulation Checks --- p.40 / Chapter 4.2 --- MANOVA analysis --- p.41 / Chapter 4.3 --- MANOVA by Structural Equation Modeling --- p.46 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- The Original Conceptual Model --- p.46 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Structural Equation Model Results --- p.49 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- The Modified Conceptual Model --- p.51 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- Structural Equation Model Results --- p.54 / Chapter 4.4 --- Discussion --- p.59 / Chapter 4.5 --- Summary --- p.60 / Chapter CHAPTER V --- CONCLUSION / Chapter 5.0 --- Overview --- p.61 / Chapter 5.1 --- Summary of the Research --- p.61 / Chapter 5.2 --- Contributions of the Study --- p.62 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Theoretical Contributions --- p.62 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Managerial Implications --- p.64 / Chapter 5.3 --- Limitations of the Study --- p.66 / Chapter 5.4 --- Directions for Future Research --- p.67 / Chapter 5.5 --- Summary --- p.68 / REFERENCE(S) --- p.70 / APPENDIX(ES) --- p.76

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

The service industry has become increasingly competitive. This dissertation addresses a number of outstanding and fundamental questions of competitions in service operations and supply chains. The challenges are characterization of the equilibrium behaviors, estimating the impact of firms' interactions, and designing of efficient market mechanisms. The first chapter of this dissertation considers price competition models for oligopolistic markets, in which the consumer reacts to relative rather than absolute prices, where the relative price is defined as the difference between the absolute price and a given reference value. Such settings arise, for example, when the full retail price earned by the ``retailer" is reduced by virtue of a third party offering a subsidy or a rebate or in prospect theoretical models in which customers establish a reference price and base their choices on the differentials with respect to the reference price. When choosing among the various competing options, the consumer trades off the net price paid with various other product or service attributes, as in standard price competition models. The reference price may be exogenously specified and pre-announced to the competing firms. Alternatively, it may be endogenously determined, as a function of the set of absolute prices selected by the competing firms, for example the lowest or the second lowest price. We characterize the equilibrium behavior under a general reference value scheme of the above type; this in a base model, where we assume that the consumer choice model is of the general MultiNomialLogit (MNL) type. We also derive comparison results for the price equilibria that arise under alternative subsidy schemes. These comparisons have important implications for the design of subsidy schemes. The second chapter applies the results of the first chapter to the Medicare insurance market, both in terms of its existing structure, as well as in terms of various proposals to redesign the program. Based on an oligopoly price competition model tailored towards this market, and actual county-by-county data for the year 2010, we estimate the impact such reforms would have on the plans' market shares, equilibrium premia, the government's cost, and the out-of-pocket expenses of the beneficiaries. We employ two different methodologies to derive the parameters in the county-by-county competition models: (i) a calibration model, and (ii) parameter distributions obtained from models estimated in Curto et al. (2015). The predicted impacts on the above performance measures are remarkably consistent across the two methodologies and reveal, for example, that the government cost would decrease by 8% if the traditional fee-for-service(FFS) plans are kept out of competitive bidding process and by 16.5%-21% if they are part of the process. The third chapter studies a class of buy procurement mechanisms, framework agreements (FAs), that are commonly used by buying agencies around the world to satisfy demand that arises over a certain time horizon. We are one of the first in the literature that provides a formal understanding of FAs, with a particular focus on the cost uncertainty faced by bidders over the FA time horizon. We introduce a model that generalizes standard auction models to include this salient feature of FAs; we analyze this model theoretically and numerically. First, we show that FAs are subject to a sort of winner's curse that in equilibrium induces higher expected buying prices relative to running first-price auctions as needs arise. Then, our results provide concrete design recommendations that alleviate this issue and decrease buying prices in FAs, highlighting the importance of (i) monitoring the price charged at the open market by the FA winner and using it to bound the buying price; (ii) investing in implementing price indexes for the random part of suppliers' costs; and (iii) allowing suppliers the flexibility to reduce their prices to compete with the open market throughout the selling period. These prescriptions are already being used by the Chilean government procurement agency that buys US$2 billion worth of contracts every year using FAs. The fourth chapter considers the preference of contractual forms in supply chains. The supply chain contracting literature has focused on incentive contracts designed to align supply chain members' individual interests. A key finding of this literature is that members' preferences for contractual forms are often at odds: the upstream supplier prefers more complex contracts that can coordinate the supply chain; however, the downstream retailer prefers the wholesale price--only contract because it leaves more surplus (than a coordinating contract) that the retailer can get. This chapter addresses the following question: under what circumstances do suppliers and retailers prefer the same contractual form? We study supply chain members' preference for contractual forms in three different competitive settings in which multiple supply chains compete to sell substitutable products to the same market. Our analysis suggests that both upstream and downstream sides of the supply chains may prefer the same ``quantity discount'' contract, thereby eliminating the conflicts of interest that otherwise typify contracting situations. More interesting still is that both sides may also prefer the wholesale price--only contract, which offers a theoretical explanation to why the simple inefficient contract is widely adopted in supply chain transactions.

服務業的重要性在過去的三十年間變得越來越為突出，因為服務幾乎佔據了多數發達經濟體國內生產總值的絶大部分，而傳統上以製造業為主的國家現在也開始在服務行業有突飛猛進的增長。與此同時，服務創新被看作是“下一個重大事件“，但是目前關於創新的研究卻仍集中于製造業的創新，而缺乏對比服務創新和製造業創新並且聚焦于服務創新和新服務開發活動的實證研究。本篇論文致力於消減這樣的不足，以實證的方式通過三個不同的研究探討了若干關於服務創新的研究問題，其資料來源於組織層面686家服務企業及1646家製造企業的資料、專案層面從一個大型多部門的中國服務企業獲得的關於多個新服務開發專案的資料。 / 研究1從服務主導邏輯和資源基礎觀出發，以實證研究方式探討並比較了顧客導向對於服務創新和製造業創新的不同影響。該研究主要涉及兩個研究問題：1）顧客導向是否正向影響服務創新性和產品創新性，而這樣的影響在服務企業和製造企業中有何不同表現？2）供應商合作和技術能力是否作為仲介變數影響了顧客導向和服務/產品創新性之間的關係，而這種影響是否在服務企業和製造企業中表現的不同？通過對於這兩個問題的實證研究，本文對服務創新對比製造業創新、以及服務主導邏輯方面的文獻和理論做出了貢獻，並且也為製造企業和服務企業的決策者提供了一些管理啟示。 / 研究2通過分析來自於中國一家大型移動電訊運營商的70個新服務開發專案，借鑒並擴展了現有服務創新研究。該研究首先試圖證實一個現有的關於服務創新的分類法，接著又通過實證研究的結果延伸了該分類法，最後提出了一些關於不同種類服務創新的假設並初步驗證了這些假設。該研究的結果對於服務創新分類有理論貢獻，也對如何在網路環境下管理新服務開發活動有著啟示。 / 研究3 是建立在研究2基礎上的跟進研究。通過使用多案例研究方法，探討了服務創新如何在大型組織中進行推廣。該研究關注三個問題：1）哪些組織因素影響了服務創新的成功推廣？2）服務創新的種類如何影響其推廣，而不同種類的服務創新又該如何相應地推廣？3）開發和推廣團隊的轉變如何影響服務創新的推廣？本研究從研究2涉及的70個服務創新專案中挑選了10個作為案例，每個均採取了有時間跨度的縱向案例研究。本研究對服務創新推廣相關文獻和理論做出了貢獻，亦為服務企業尤其是具有多個業務部門及分公司的大型服務企業的經理人們提供了管理啟示。 / The importance of service sector has grown significantly over the past three decades as services dominate the majority of GDP in most advanced economies and even countries that historically focused on manufacturing are now growing rapidly in services. Meanwhile, service innovation has been regarded as “the next big thing, but the majority of innovation research still focuses on innovation in manufacturing. There is a scarcity of empirical studies to address the differences between service innovation and manufacturing innovation and to focus on service innovation and new service development activities. This thesis is an effort to remedy that deficiency by empirically addressing several major issues about service innovation with three studies, based on organizational-level data collected from 686 service companies and 1646 manufacturing companies and project-level data of new service development projects collected from a large multi-units service company in China. / In Study 1, the impact of customer orientation on service innovation and manufacturing innovation has been empirically investigated and compared through the theoretical lens of service-dominant logic and resource-based view. This study mainly addresses two research questions: 1) Does customer orientation positively relate to both service and product innovativeness and how does this effect differ between service and manufacturing firms? 2) Do supplier collaboration and technological capability mediate the relationship between customer orientation and service/product innovativeness differently in service firms and manufacturing firms? By empirically addressing these two research questions, this study contributes to the literature on service versus manufacturing innovation and service-dominant logic, and provides some managerial implications for decision makers in both manufacturing firms and service firms. / Study 2 builds on and extends extant service innovation research by investigating 70 new service development (NSD) projects of a large mobile telecom firm in China. This study first seeks to validate an existing taxonomy of service innovation, and then seeks to extend the taxonomy, grounded on the empirical research findings. Finally this study develops propositions concerning service innovation types and provides preliminary empirical investigation. Results from the analyses contribute to the literature on the taxonomy of service innovation and provide insightful implications as how to manage the NSD activities in the network environment. / Study 3 is a follow-up study of the second study. This study uses a multiple-cases research design to study the deployment of service innovations in a large organization. Three important research questions are addressed: 1) what are the organizational factors leading to successful deployment of innovations? 2) How does the type of service innovation influence the deployment and how should different types of innovation be deployed accordingly? 3) How does the change of development and/or deployment team influence the deployment of innovations? 10 cases out of the 70 service innovations covered in Study 2 are selected and a longitudinal case-study approach is employed. This study contributes to literature of service innovation deployment and provides managerial implications for managers in service firms, especially those large service firms with multiple units or subsidiaries. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Wang, Qiang. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-128). / Abstract also in Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.I / ABSTRACT (CHINESE) --- p.IV / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.VI / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.VIII / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.XI / LIST OF TABLES --- p.XII / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- The Definition and Characteristics of Service --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2 --- Service Innovation and New Service Development --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Structure of the Thesis --- p.4 / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1 --- Service Innovation versus Manufacturing Innovation --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- The Taxonomy of Service Innovation --- p.10 / Chapter 2.3 --- Mainstream Theories Being Used in Service Innovation --- p.15 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Service-dominant logic (SDL) --- p.15 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Resource-based view (RBV) --- p.17 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Dynamic capabilities view (DCV) --- p.18 / Chapter 2.3.4 --- Other theories or perspectives --- p.19 / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- THE EFFECTS OF CUSTOMER ORIENTATION ON PRODUCT/SERVICE INNOVATIVENESS AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MANUFACTURING AND SERVICE FIRMS --- p.24 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.24 / Chapter 3.2 --- Theoretical Background and Literature Review --- p.27 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Service versus manufacturing innovation --- p.27 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Customer orientation --- p.31 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Service-dominant logic --- p.34 / Chapter 3.3 --- Research Framework and Hypotheses --- p.35 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- The effect of customer orientation on innovation performance --- p.36 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- A customer-centric model of firm resources --- p.32 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- A comparison of the model in service versus manufacturing firms --- p.42 / Chapter 3.4 --- Research Methodology --- p.45 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Measures --- p.45 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Sampling and data collection --- p.49 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Respondent profile --- p.50 / Chapter 3.5 --- Analysis and Results --- p.52 / Chapter 3.5.1 --- Non-response bias and common method bias --- p.52 / Chapter 3.5.2 --- Reliability and validity --- p.53 / Chapter 3.5.3 --- Hypotheses testing results --- p.55 / Chapter 3.6 --- Discussion and implications --- p.57 / Chapter 3.6.1 --- Theoretical implications --- p.57 / Chapter 3.6.2 --- Managerial implications --- p.60 / Chapter 3.6.3 --- Limitations and avenues for future research --- p.61 / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- A TAXONOMY OF SERVICE INNOVATION BASED ON ANALYSES OF NEW SERVICE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN A MOBILE TELECOM FIRM --- p.63 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.63 / Chapter 4.2 --- Theoretical Background and Research Propositions --- p.65 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Service innovation and its typology --- p.65 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- The relationship between different service innovation types --- p.68 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Service innovation type and collaboration --- p.69 / Chapter 4.3 --- Methodology --- p.70 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Research design and level of analysis --- p.70 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Data collection --- p.72 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Data analysis method --- p.74 / Chapter 4.4 --- Results --- p.77 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- The taxonomy of service innovation --- p.77 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- A refined taxonomy of service innovation --- p.79 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- External collaborations and duration of projects --- p.81 / Chapter 4.5 --- Discussion and Conclusion --- p.83 / Chapter 4.6 --- Limitations and Future Research --- p.86 / Chapter CHAPTER 5 --- THE DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT OF SERVICE INNOVATIONS: A LONGITUDINAL CASE STUDY --- p.89 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.89 / Chapter 5.2 --- The Deployment of Service Innovation --- p.90 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- The locus of service innovation --- p.93 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- The deployment of different types of service innovation --- p.94 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- The organization for deployment --- p.96 / Chapter 5.3 --- Research Method --- p.98 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Empirical case research --- p.98 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- The deployment of service innovations studied --- p.100 / Chapter 5.4 --- Results --- p.102 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- An overview of the deployment outcomes --- p.102 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- The locus of the service innovations --- p.103 / Chapter 5.4.3 --- The three types of service innovation --- p.105 / Chapter 5.4.4 --- The organization for the deployments --- p.106 / Chapter 5.5 --- Discussion and Conclusion --- p.110 / Chapter 5.6 --- Limitations and Future Research --- p.113 / Chapter CHAPTER 6 --- CONCLUSION --- p.115 / Chapter REFERENCES --- p.118 / Chapter APPENDIX A. --- MEASUREMENT ITEMS FOR STUDY 1 --- p.129 / Chapter APPENDIX B. --- THE CASE RESEARCH PROTOCOL FOR STUDY 3 --- p.131

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: p. 421-443. / xxiii, 452 p. : ill., maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Geographical and Environmental Studies, 2003