The importance of good relationship among parties in the construction industry has been accepted as one of the central issues of an organisation's success. The growing acceptance to the Relational Contracting approaches that representing partnering, supply chain alliances and other types of collaborative working relationships shows how construction organisations are moving forward from the traditional adversarial culture to a more harmonious working environment. However the application of the Relational Contracting Norms in the context of national culture has received relatively little attention in the literature. This study attempts to fill this void by investigating how good relationships develop within construction projects in Malaysia. It also investigates the adaptability of the relational contracting norms in different cultural setting and explores whether similar relational contracting norms emerge in different projects before developing a relationship development model that is applicable to the academic and practitioners. By using qualitative approach, the main data was collected from 36 semi-structured in-depth interviews across four case studies. The results were validated by 20 follow-up interviews with selected respondents, two stages of expert interviews and cross-case analysis. This study found that good relationships within construction projects in the Malaysian construction industry developed from the interplay of twelve structural and relational dimensions that went through three stages of relationship development process in project setting. It highlights the significant importance of the value and emotion-related dimensions in developing good relationships. A relationship development model was produced based on these twelve dimensions (special contract directive, power, performance, trust, commitment, loyalty, personal relationships, emotions, values, social interaction, work inter-dependency and political connection). The research contributes to construction management literature by supporting the Transaction Cost Economics Theory and extends the Relational Contracting Theory. It proposes seven new dimensions that are incorporated in the newly proposed relationship development model. Although the study was conducted in a specific national culture, it is argued that the model is applicable to other context on the basis that spiritual, emotional and human components of the work experience could be learned by other cultures.

Consumer foreign online purchasing (CFOP) in this thesis refers to the exchange between consumers and foreign online retailers. Despite empirical facts showing increasing interest of consumers to purchase from foreign online retailers, researchers have only paid modest interest to this new marketing field. In response to recent researchers’ calls for further studies in this new field, this thesis aims to add knowledge on why some consumers purchase from foreign online retailers and others do not. CFOP is associated with uncertainty, so it is important to study what affects uncertainty and how consumers deals with uncertainty. Contrary to marketing-management theory studies, this thesis employs behavior theory and adopts views from relationship and network perspectives. The theoretical framework in this effort is business relationship concepts (commitment, trust, and uncertainty) and provides deeper understanding of how consumers behave in foreign online purchasing contexts. The empirical studies in this thesis employ multiple methods, including, in-depth, focus groups, narrative interviews, and two quantitative studies. This thesis discusses previous studies on marketing management theory, business-to-business and business-to-consumer relationships. Based on the framework, this thesis contributes with deeper insight for understanding consumers’ foreign online purchasing behavior. The empirical and theoretical contributions of this thesis not only advance understanding of this market arena, but also may attract the interest of other researcher. In addition to the four papers with different theoretical contributions, the thesis contains a summary to properly position its theoretical background. Since the papers have a variety of emphases and stress different uses of analytical tools, uncertainty, commitment, and trust, the summary connects the four papers into a theoretical framework. The theoretical frame explicitly states the findings in the papers. It explains factors that affect uncertainty in CFOP and also how consumers deal with uncertainty in order to establish and develop relationships through the pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase phases.

Dissertation (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Sage Colleges, 2010. / "May 2010." "Graduate thesis paper for PSY589: Thesis presented to Professsor, Dr. Donald Graves, Department of Psychology, Sage Graduate School in partial fufillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Counseling and Community Psychology." Includes bibliographical references.

The objectives of this thesis are: (1) to investigate the antecedents and consequences of fairness of performance evaluation processes (procedural fairness) in the context of performance measurement, evaluation, and reward systems; and (2) to investigate the behavioural effects of reliance on multiple performance measures (RMPM) in evaluating subordinates' performance. In relation to the first objective, it examines whether managers' perceptions of procedural fairness are influenced by the form (financial or nonfinancial) of performance measures used to evaluate performance, and by goal-related variables such as participation in setting performance targets, the goal-attainment-reward link, and the specificity of goals to be achieved by managers. With regard to the consequences of procedural fairness, it examines the effects of procedural fairness on job satisfaction, performance, organisational commitment, and goal commitment, and also examines whether any such associations are direct or indirect. In relation to the second objective, it examines whether RMPM affects managerial performance or whether the effect is contingent on goal difficulty and goal specificity. To address these objectives, this thesis draws on organisational justice theory and goal theory and employs both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Quantitative data are collected using a questionnaire survey sent to managers in four organisations and qualitative data are gathered by means of interviews and focus group discussions within the organisations. The results indicate that procedural fairness is affected by participation in setting performance targets, the goal-attainment-reward link, and the specificity of goals to be achieved by managers, but not by the type of performance measure used to evaluate performance. With regard to the consequences of procedural fairness, the results indicate that: (1) the effects of procedural fairness on job satisfaction and performance are indirect and fully mediated by distributive fairness, trust, and organisational commitment; (2) the effect of procedural fairness on organisational commitment is partially mediated by distributive fairness and trust; and (3) the effect of procedural fairness on goal commitment is partially mediated by trust. Finally, the results indicate that the effect of RMPM on performance is contingent on goal specificity, but not on goal difficulty.

O uso da internet nos negÃcios vem sendo discutido cada vez mais pelas organizaÃÃes, em virtude de seu baixo custo, rapidez de comunicaÃÃo e interatividade. Portanto, desenvolver um relacionamento com seus clientes, de forma a conquistar a satisfaÃÃo, confianÃa e comprometimento à o que as empresas buscam. Esse fato levou o presente estudo a procurar identificar se as empresas cearenses de TI (Tecnologia da InformaÃÃo) utilizam a internet no relacionamento com seus clientes e de que forma à realizado. Pois, apesar de serem criadoras e difusoras das ferramentas digitais nas organizaÃÃes em geral, acredita-se que as empresas de TI ainda utilizam de forma incipiente a internet no relacionamento com seus clientes. Assim, discute-se o grau de utilizaÃÃo do ambiente web pelas empresas, atravÃs do modelo proposto por Bauer et al. (2002), e como isso influencia a satisfaÃÃo, confianÃa e comprometimento dos clientes dessas empresas. Essa discussÃo à conduzida a partir de um estudo de caso de uma empresa cearense de TI de expressividade no mercado local e um questionÃrio aplicado com os clientes dessa empresa, alÃm da sua aplicaÃÃo com a literatura abordada. / The use of the Internet in business has been increasingly discussed by organizations because of its low cost, speed of communication and interactivity. Therefore, companies seek to develop a relationship with their customers in order to gain satisfaction, trust and commitment. This fact impelled the present study to try to detect if the IT (Information Technology) companies use the Internet as a tool of customer relationship and how it is done. Despite being the creator and disseminator of digital tools in organizations in general, it is believed that its companies still use the Internet in the relationship with their customers in an incipient way. Thus, the level of web usage by the companies is discussed, through the model proposed by Bauer et al. (2002), and how this may influence satisfaction, trust and commitment of the customers of these companies. This discussion is based on a case study of an IT company with expressiveness in the local market and a questionnaire applied to the customers of this company, apart from its application to the literature discussed.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how sustainability can be used in social media marketing to create trust and commitment in B2B relationships with all stakeholders.  Method: Multiple case study with an abductive approach, data collection through nine semi-structured interviews and several sources of secondary data. Conclusion: Sustainability in SMM is used to create a better brand image and contributes to finding new business partners while also improving existing relationships with various stakeholders. However, in a B2B context, the offline activities of physical meetings are still of high importance for creating trust and commitment.

SAMMANFATTNING Datum: 2020-06-07 Nivå: Kandidatuppsats i företagsekonomi, 15 hp Institution: Akademin för Ekonomi, Samhälle och Teknik, Mälardalens högskola Författare: Jonathan Vahlkvist – (97/12/20) Max Gren – (94/02/02) Titel: Vet du ens om att jag finns? – En utredning av studentkårens marknadskommunikation. Handledare: Aswo Safari Nyckelord: Förtroende, engagemang, Mälardalens studentkår, köpintentioner, kommunikationsstrategi, attityd Frågeställning: Vilka faktorer påverkar studenters framtida köpintentioner gentemot studentkåren? Avgränsningar: Faktorer: attityd, engagemang, förtroende, kommunikationsstrategi. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att utvärdera påverkan mellan studentkårens kommunikation och studenternas upplevda förtroende, engagemang, attityd och köpintentioner. Därav ämnar denna studie att undersöka Mälardalens studentkårs kommunikation och relation till studenterna, för att bidra till förbättrade kommunikationsmöjligheter, som sedan kan resultera i en bättre studentkår för studenterna på Mälardalens högskola. Metod: Studien använder en deduktiv ansats. Empiriska data är framtagen i form av enkäter riktade till studenter på Mälardalens högskola. Slutsats: De faktorer som påverkar studenternas framtida köpintentioner gentemot studentkåren är förtroende, engagemang samt attityd. De kommunikationsstrategier som lämpar sig bäst för Mälardalens studentkår är de med fokus på att kommunicera regelbundet med medlemmarna, kommunicera med underhållande och kreativ information samt den där kommunikationen är tydlig och korrekt.