Customer's ever increasing bargaining power makes it particularly important that practitioners and researchers more thoroughly understand the complex nature of customer commitment. Not surprisingly, however, although the construct of commitment has emerged as one of the key constructs in relationship marketing and has been widely studied in literature, there has been very little agreement on the conceptualisation of the construct. Building upon relationship marketing and organisational behaviour literature, the aim of this research is to extend our understanding of the nature of customer commitment by developing a three-dimensional customer commitment model relaying on commitment theory from the organisational behaviour literature; affective desire-based (AC), calculative cost-based (CC), and normative obligation-based (NC). Relationships among the commitment dimensions and relationships with a number of loyalty relational outcomes, namely, intention to stay (ITS), word of mouth (WOM), and willingness to pay (WTP) were investigated in this study. Using survey questionnaire distributed among customers of cell phone services (N=525), the data was analysed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and then additional analysis was employed to further demystify the complexity of the commitment concept. The results suggest that AC is the dominant source that generates customer loyalty, in line with the state of literature. Both cost-based and surprisingly obligation-based have shown detrimental effects on maintaining and developing the customer-service provider relationship. Additional analysis with various scenarios was implemented using mean split as cut score for high/low commitment dimensions. The findings suggest NC turns to have important positive role on relational outcomes when both AC and CC are below the mean split. When both AC and CC are high NC negatively affect at least ITS but at the same time make a clear positive effect on WTP. The findings can be instructional for identifying how firms can bend various marketing sources to secure more loyal customers to the service provider.

This dissertation examines the antecedents and consequences of a fairly new construct in academic literature termed brand citizenship behavior. Constructs explored in the proposed model include brand identity, brand communication, internal marketing, brand pride, brand commitment, intention to stay and job satisfaction. A sample of 241 associates was surveyed at a large retail organization and key demographic variables were captured. Results indicate a causal relationship between internal marketing and brand citizenship behavior as well brand pride. While a causal link between brand citizenship behavior and brand commitment was not supported overall, permutations indicate causality among part time associates. Brand pride was found to mediate the relationship between brand citizenship behavior and brand commitment.

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Syftet med studien var att undersöka om arbetsgivarens attraktivitet, utifrån fem dimensioner, kunde predicera medarbetarens vilja att stanna kvar inom organisationen samt eventuella skillnader mellan mäns och kvinnors uppfattning om sin arbetsgivares attraktivitet. En enkät skickades ut till en organisation inom tillverkningsindustrin och totalt medverkade 69 deltagare. Mätinstrument som användes var Employer Attractiveness Scale (EmpAt-Scale) och Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ III), vilka mätte arbetsgivarattraktivitet samt medarbetarens intention att söka sig till annan arbetsgivare. Employer attractiveness-dimensionen utvecklingsvärde, kunde signifikant predicera viljan att stanna kvar hos organisationen, det vill säga att ju högre grad av upplevt utvecklingsvärde desto starkare vilja att stanna kvar inom organisationen. Resterande fyra dimensioner kunde inte signifikant predicera viljan att stanna kvar inom organisationen. Resultatet påvisade att kvinnor hade ett högre skattat värde beträffande intresse för arbetsgivaren, ekonomiskt- och utvecklingsvärde, vilket indikerar att kvinnorna uppfattar sin arbetsgivare som mer attraktiv gällande föreliggande dimensioner. / The purpose of the study was to quantitatively investigate if employer attractiveness, based on five dimensions, could predict the employee's intention to stay in the organization and if men and women perceived the attractiveness of their employer differently. A survey was sent out an organization in the manufacturing industry and a total of 69 respondents participated. Measuring instruments that were used in the survey was Employer Attractiveness Scale (EmpAt-Scale) and Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ III), which examined the employer attractiveness and intention to stay at the organization. One of the Employer Attractiveness-dimensions, development value, could significantly predict the intention to stay in the organization, which means the higher extent of perceived development value, the stronger the will to stay in the organization. The remaining dimensions could not significantly predict the intention to stay. The results indicated that women had a higher scored value regarding interest value, economic value and development value, which signify that women find their employer as more attractive in these values.

The aim of this study is to investigate employees in knowledge-intensive organizations' intentions to stay in their workplace and to see if organizational culture and internal marketing activities have an effect to reduce voluntary staff turnover.There are several factors which affect employees' intentions to leave or stay in their current work position. The result of this study shows initially that there needs to be some form of agreement between the employee's and the employer's values, needs or vision of the future. Factors that may make an employee in a knowledge-intensive organization want to leave might be that the individual does not feel safe, does not have trust or confidence in their leader or colleagues. It can also be due to the individual not feeling that he or she is growing in his or her job role, has career opportunities or that he or she feels locked in and controlled in their tasks. Internal marketing activities and organizational culture are two factors that knowledge-intensive organizations can work with to become a more attractive employer and reduce voluntary staff turnover. Internal marketing activities are an initiative that in this study proved to have a positive effect on employee well-being, motivation, commitment and loyalty to the organization. Knowledge-intensive organizations that work with initiatives to promote internal marketing activities and organizational culture create good conditions for their staff to thrive better, get an attractive employer brand and lower involuntary staff turnover. In conclusion, it was found in this study that transformative leaders have the leadership qualities that are described as most desirable and sought after in knowledge-intensive organizations.

Bakgrund: Idag beräknas bristen på sjuksköterskor uppgå till 5,9 miljoner sjuksköterskor globalt, ensiffra som väntas stiga. Att sjuksköterskor lämnar sina arbetsplatser beror på flera faktorer. Hög arbetsbelastning, etisk stress och bristande ledarskap är några exempel. Detta leder till brist på god omvårdnad och bristande patientsäkerhet.  Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka vad som påverkar sjuksköterskors intention att stanna på sin arbetsplats.  Metod: En kvalitativ litteraturstudie baserad på data från 10 originalartiklar genomfördes, och analyserades med en tematisk innehållsanalys.  Resultat: Tre teman och åtta subteman identifierades. Individuella faktorer innehöll subteman: Privatliv, Klinisk erfarenhet och Ekonomiska faktorer. Det andra temat, Tillfredställelse i arbetet med subteman Professionsstolthet, omvårdnadsfokus och utmanande utveckling. Slutligen Mellanmänskliga relationer, vilken beskrev vikten av Omsorgsfullt ledarskap och Kollegial sammanhållning.  Slutsats: Sjuksköterskor behöver en stabil organisation och en miljö där de tillåts arbeta efter deras professionella autonomi, möjlighet till utveckling, ett gott ledarskap och goda relationer med kollegor. Vidare finns det likheter mellan sjuksköterskors intention att stanna och intentionen att lämna, men även viktiga skillnader. Ytterligare forskning kring detta samband förelsås. Detta för att bidra till god omvårdnad och en säker vård för patienterna. / Background: The global nursing shortage is estimated to 5,9 million nurses. Nurses are leaving their workplaces and the profession. This relates to several factors, for example, high workload, moral distress, and lack of good leadership which contributes to lack of proper nursing care and poor patient safety.   Aim: The aim of this study was to examine what affect nurses’ intention to stay in their workplace.  Method: A literature review of qualitative data was conducted from ten original articles, and was analysed using a qualitative thematic analysis approach.  Results: Three themes and eight subthemes were identified. Individual factors containing subthemes: personal life, clinical experience and financial factors. The second theme was Work satisfaction including subthemes professional pride, nursing care and challenging growth. The last theme was Interpersonal relationships describing the importance of caring leadership and collegial support.  Conclusion: Nurses´ need stable organisations, good leadership, collegial support and being allowed to use their expertise and professional autonomy. There are many similarities between nurses’ intention to stay and intention to leave, but also important differences. Further research investigating these differences are recommended to improve nurses’ work environment.

I dagens läge med ökad konkurrens om att dels attrahera men också behålla en kompetent arbetskraft, så står företag inför stora utmaningar. Att behålla anställda inom företaget är idag en hög prioritet då kostnaderna för att ersätta anställda är stora. Få studier har undersökt hur olika aspekter av arbetsgivarvarumärket och personliga värderingar påverkar anställdas avsikter att stanna kvar hos arbetsgivaren. Syftet för denna fallstudie är att skapa större förståelse för vilka aspekter som är attraktiva i ett arbetsgivarvarumärke, med CSR som en integrerad del, samt vad som påverkar anställda att stanna kvar hos arbetsgivaren. Forskningsansatsen för denna studie är förklarande med en deduktiv och kvantitativ ansats. Datainsamlingen har skett i samarbetet med företaget BDX i Luleå i form av en enkätundersökning med 97 respondenter. Resultatet indikerar på att företag bör fokusera på vilket innovationsvärde och ledarskapsvärde som de kan erbjuda sina anställda för att öka attraktiviteten till företaget. När anställdas personliga värderingar stämmer överens med företagets värderingar så påverkar det positivt deras avsikter att stanna kvar hos arbetsgivaren. Studien har bidragit teoretiskt till litteraturen i form av en djupare förståelse av vilka aspekter som anses attraktiva i ett arbetsgivarvarumärke samt vad som påverkar anställdas avsikter att stanna hos arbetsgivaren inom entreprenad- och logistiksektorn.

Background. Shortage of nurses is an alarming problem in Sweden and the world as a whole. To be able to solve this problem it important to identify those factors that according to the nurses can contribute to make their work attractive. Aims. The aim of this study was to describe factors that make work attractive and how these differ from the actual work situation among nurses who work in orthopedic departments. Methods. It was a cross-sectional survey with descriptive and comparative design. Data were collected in orthopedic departments in sex different hospitals in the middle of Sweden using questionnaires. A total of 95 nurses responded. Correlation and regression analyses was used to analyze the data. Main Results. According to the nurses’ factors that were most important for a job to be attractive were leadership, salaries, collaboration (teamwork) and job status. Nurses appreciated their current work situation lower than the attractive work. To feel valuable was the best in the current work situation, while the salary was worst. Comparison of the current work with the attractive work shows significant difference with significant level <0.05 when comparing all factors. The most significant was salary because it had the biggest discrepancy between the current work and the attractive work while the journey to and from work had the least discrepancy. Conclusions. According to the results of the analyses good leadership, high salaries, good collaboration (teamwork) and good job status are of great importance when considering strategies to retain nurses. Nurses appreciated their current work situation lower than the attractive work with salaries being worst. This implies that one strategy that could improve the current working situation may be an increase in salaries. / Sammanfattning Bakgrund. Brist på sjuksköterskor är ett alarmerande problem i Sverige och i världen. För att kunna lösa problemet är det viktigt att identifiera de faktorer som enligt sjuksköterskor kan bidra till att göra deras arbete attraktivt. Syfte. Syftet med studien var beskriva faktorer som gör ett arbete attraktivt och hur detta skiljer sig mot den faktiska arbetssituationen bland sjuksköterskor som arbetar på ortopediska vårdavdelningar i mellan Sverige. Metod. Det är en tvärsnitt studie med beskrivande och jämförande design. Datainsamling skedde på ortopediska vårdavdelningar på sex olika sjukhus i mellan Sverige med hjälp av enkäter. Totalt 95 sjuksköterskor svarade. Korrelations- och regressionsanalys användes för att analysera data. Huvudresultat. De faktorer som enligt sjuksköterskor var mest betydelsefulla för att ett arbete ska vara attraktivt var ledarskap, lön, samarbete och arbetsstatus. Sjuksköterskor skattade sin nuvarande arbetssituation lägre än det attraktiva arbetet. Att känna sig värdefull skattades högst i den nuvarande arbetssituationen medan lönen var sämst. Jämförelse av nuvarande arbete med attraktivt arbete visade signifikant skillnader vid jämförelsen av alla faktorer. Lönen hade störst diskrepans mellan det nuvarande arbetet och det attraktiva arbetet medan resan till och från arbete hade minst diskrepans. Slutsatser. Enligt analys av resultatet har ledarskap, lön samarbete och arbetsstatus stor betydelse vid övervägande av strategier för att behålla sjuksköterskor. Sjuksköterskor skattade sin nuvarande arbetssituation lägre än det attraktiva arbetet och lönen lägst. Detta innebär att en strategi som skulle kunna förbättra den nuvarande arbetssituationen på något sätt kan vara löneökning.

Ces dernières années, le Vietnam a rejoint de nombreuses associations économiques de commerce international, en particulier l’organisation mondiale du commerce en 2007. Cela a permis à un grand nombre d’entreprises multinationales de s’implanter dans ce pays. Ce développement s’est traduit par une augmentation de la concurrence dans les ressources humaines. En conséquence, la question de la fidélité des salariés devient une problématique importante pour les responsables des ressources humaines.Il est impossible de réussir au Vietnam sans comprendre le contexte social, historique et culturel dans lequel les entreprises agissent. Une bonne connaissance de la culture nationale et organisationnelle pourrait fournir une meilleure compréhension de leurs influences sur l’intention de rester des salariés dans leur entreprise. La problématique de cette recherche est « Quelles sont les dimensions culturelles organisationnelles qui interviennent sur l’intention de rester des salariés dans leur entreprise vietnamienne ?». L’objectif est donc de mesurer l’influence de la culture organisationnelle sur l’intention de rester des salariés. Une enquête par questionnaires a été réalisée en 2014 auprès de 2000 salariés travaillant dans 30 entreprises informatiques vietnamiennes. 734 questionnaires complets ont été retournés.Les données analysées par les logiciels SPSS et AMOS ont permis de tester les relations entre les variables de notre modèle.Les résultats confirment que (1) la culture du clan est la valeur culturelle dominante dans les entreprises vietnamiennes ; (2) la culture du clan, la culture de l’adhocratie, la culture de la hiérarchie, l’identification au groupe et l’identification organisationnelle constituent les principaux motifs de l’intention de rester des salariés ; (3) la satisfaction au travail et l’implication affective jouent un rôle médiateur dans la relation entre la culture organisationnelle et l’intention de rester dans l’entreprise. / In recent years, Vietnam has joined many international trade associations, particularly the Word Trade Organization in 2007. This has allowed a large number of multinational companies to set up operations in this country. This development leads to a high competition in terms of human resources. As a result, the employees’ loyalty becomes an important issue for human resources managers.It is impossible to succeed in Vietnam without understanding the culture and the social, historical, political context in which the enterprises operate. A good knowledge of national and organizational culture could provide a better understanding of their influence on the employees’ intention to stay in the company.The main question of this research is “What are the organizational culture’s dimensions that impact the employees’ intention to stay in Vietnamese companies?”. The aim is to measure the influence of organizational culture on the employees’ intention to stay. A survey with 2000 employees working in 30 Vietnamese high-technology enterprises was carried out in 2014. 734 complete questionnaires were returned.The data analyzed by the SPSS and AMOS software allowed us to test the relationships between the variables of our model. The results confirm that (1) the clan culture is the dominant cultural value in Vietnamese enterprises; (2) the clan culture, the adhocracy culture, the culture hierarchy, the identification with group and organizational identification are the main reasons for the employees’ intention to stay; (3) job satisfaction and affective involvement play a mediating role in the relationship between organizational culture and the intention to stay in their enterprise.

M. Tech. (Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / Retailing refers to the activities involved in selling goods or services to the final consumer for personal use as opposed to business purposes. It is a socio-economic system that gets people together to interchange goods and services for a small payment, which matches the final consumers’ needs. In South Africa, the industry has grown by a yearly average of 3 percent in the past eight years and Gauteng, as a province, contributed 26.5 percent to this growth. Therefore, the retail industry has been growing at a very slow rate. Letooane (2013:2) asserts that that there is a need for research in leadership power bases, QWL and how best the needs of employees can be satisfied to improve their intention to stay. In this reard, the primary objective of the study was to examine the relationship between leadership power bases, quality of work life (QWL) and intention to stay among employees at a selected retail outlet in Gauteng province. The research methodology applied to conduct the study was a consolidation of a literature review and an empirical study.The study focused on the work of French and Raven (1959) power sources, namely coercive, legitimate, reward, referent and expert power. It also looked at QWL as the nature of the workforce in retail today is generally very different from the workforce of the past decades. In addition, the study explored how QWL will assist retailers in enhancing their employees’ intention to stay. A quantitative research approach was followed in this study and a simple random probability sampling method was adopted. A structured questionnaire, divided into four sections, was utilised to survey 300 (both male and female) employees from three branches of the selected retail company in the Daveyton township. The pilot study preceded the main survey and the internal consistency reliability was ascertained. Of the 300 questionnaires distributed to the participants, a total of 285 responses were usable for data analysis (response rate of 95 percent). The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 25.0, was used to analyse data into descriptive statistics, reliability and validity analysis, correlations and finally, regression analysis, which was used to test the relationship among the constructs under investigation. The results indicated that coercive power base (β=0.456) and legitimate power base (β=0.210) contribute positively to the prediction of QWL, while reward power indicated a negative prediction of QWL (β= -0.044). Furthermore, the influence of QWL towards employees’ intention to stay was represented by a positive beta weight of (β=0.754). Additionally, all Cronbach’s alpha values ranged from 0.764 to 0.913, (exceeding the threshold of 0.7) thus suggesting that all the items in the scale tap into the same underlying constructs. Results from this research study will assist retailers to increase the QWL levels in their companies by advancing the factors that were identified in this research study. Additionally, these results may enable retail store managers to comprehensively understand how employees perceive power bases and how these employees’ perceptions influence QWL and, subsequently, their intention to stay. The implications of the results are addressed as well as the limitations of the study and future research opportunities are further identified.