Title: Do we have a common interest? - Cultivating relationships or spreading information; a study of Strategic Political Communication on Facebook. Authors: Amanda Gibbs Sjödin & Sean Rembe Mc Hugh Course: Medie- och Kommunikationsvetenskap C, Bachelor Thesis Paper, 15hp, HT 2014. Words: 16 027 This essay aims to examine the level of relationship cultivation strategies in Swedish campaign communication. The progress in political communication emphasizes aspects of public relations such as relationship marketing . We will combine theories regarding relationship marketing with the new possibilities created for campaign communication by the emergence of web 2.0. The popular social media platforms which exist within web 2.0 give campaigns well suited means to easily facilitate input, inspire dialogue and cultivate relationships. We aim to answer the following question; Which strategic components do the parties apply in their Facebook communication? Do the parties differ in their use of communicative tools? In order to answer this question we have operationalized theories in political communication, reputation management and relationship marketing. This operationalizing resulted in eight variables. We conducted a quantitative content analysis by measuring the presence of our variables in each Facebook post made by each party on their Facebook page during the final month of the 2014 election.. The results show that both parties utilize these strategies and in a similar way but that there is a difference in how much. The Feminist Initiative had a higher overall usage but the strategy common interest was used to a high level by both parties, this shows that the parties mainly stress shared values and ideology in their communication.

Darbe teoriniu lygmeniu išanalizuoti ir apibendrinti sprendimai, ugdantys vartotojų lojalumą, parengtas vartotojų lojalumo ugdymo struktūrinis modelis ir jis empiriškai patikrintas „Zara“ prekės ženklo pavyzdžiu. Pirmoje darbo dalyje atskleista vartotojų lojalumo konceptualioji esmė, išanalizuoti ir apibendrinti sprendimai, ugdantys vartotojų lojalumą bei pagrįstos vartotojų demografinių charakteristikų ir lojalumo sąsajos. Antroje darbo dalyje atlikta vartotojų lojalumo ugdymo teorinių modelių analizė. Remiantis teorinių tyrimų rezultatais, parengtas vartotojų lojalumo ugdymo struktūrinis modelis. Parengta vartotojų lojalumo ugdymo tyrimo metodika. Trečioje darbo dalyje atliktas vartotojų lojalumo ugdymo empirinis tyrimas ir apibendrinti jo rezultatai. Remiantis tyrimo rezultatais, empiriškai patikrintas vartotojų lojalumo ugdymo struktūrinis modelis. / The results of the theoretic and empiric research showed that brand and relationship marketing develops satisfaction and satisfaction creates consumer loyalty. The final work for Master consists of three parts. The first part reveals the conceptual nature of consumer loyalty. Also it consists of analyze and summary of consumer loyalty development decisions. The second part presents and analyzes the theoretical model of consumer loyalty development decisions. And based on results of the theoretical research the structured model of consumer loyalty development is presented. The third part consists analysis of results of empirical study and validation of theoretical model of consumer loyalty development decisions.

A firm�s relationships with its customers contribute to its organizational capital and represent an important part of its shareholder value, so the nature of the value in these relationships needs to be understood well and managed carefully. Marketing managers therefore require techniques that will assess relationship value comprehensively in order to manage their portfolio of customer relationships effectively and in order to argue for a sufficient share of the firm�s resources to develop these market based assets for competitive advantage. At present, there is a well-established technique for assessing customer profitability analysis which assigns revenues, expenses, assets and liabilities to customers and algebraically sums their value to reach a profitability figure for each customer. However, even in its more sophisticated forms, the primary focus of customer profitability analysis as it is currently used tends to be the management of profitability by way of the management of existing situations, and particularly of cost, rather than the management of the value that is potentially available in the future from the intangible aspects of a relationship. Without knowledge of the dimensions of intangible value in the relationship, the technique is restricted to assessing those relationship aspects that can be easily quantified in dollar terms by the modification of existing accounting information. This leaves a gap in the available toolbox for managers in assessing relationship value, because much of the value of a relationship may be in its intangible aspects, which at present can not be readily assessed other than by a manager�s experience and intuition. In order to develop techniques specifically for intangible value assessment, it is necessary to understand the dimensions of this intangible value. Development of scales to measure the dimensions of this intangible relationship value and development of an understanding of its structure is thus a useful research goal, which is supported by calls in the literature for the quantification of market-based assets and their value Elucidation of the dimensions and structure of intangible relationship value is therefore the goal of this thesis. Although there are recent reports in the literature of studies that include the intangible aspects of relationship value, most of those that have been conducted in a business-to-business context appear to be primarily concerned with investigating the drivers of value rather than its dimensions, and those that deal with the business-to-consumer context describe techniques to assess the aggregated value of many consumers, rather than an individual buyer as is required for business-to-business applications. The thesis therefore proposes a conceptual framework, synthesised from the intellectual capital literature, which provides a set of six dimensions and a structure of intangible business-to-business buyer-seller value. The six proposed dimensions are unique in that they cover the human aspects of the relationship extensively. The thesis describes the testing of the proposed conceptual framework. This was achieved primarily by the use of the structural equation modelling technique on survey data that was collected from managers in the New Zealand manufacturing industry, following qualitatively analysed interviews with managers. The tests support the framework and its value dimensions. The thesis therefore concludes that this research provides a contribution to the literature on value assessment and that future research should be conducted to validate its findings.

True loyalty, which denotes customer's willingness to continue patronizing a firm over the long term, buying its goods and service on a repeated and preferably exclusive basis, and voluntarily giving word-of-mouth referrals to friends and associates, is an extremely valuable asset to the financial service providers - as the customer's motivation for switching to competitive alternatives is reduced. A conceptual model is developed in this paper to present the likely influence of customer relationship quality with the salesperson on the development of true customer service loyalty (dispositional dimension) to the associated financial service provider firm through personal capitalization on a customer's trust, satisfaction, commitment, affective conflict and reduced perceived risk with the salesperson (attributional dimensions) and a customer's positive perceived service quality of the firm (structural dimension). It is suggested that a strong customer relationship with a financial planning salesperson leads to true service loyalty to the principal, as positive attitudes towards the salesperson are transferred directly to the firm. In situations where a strong relationship develops between the customer and only one particular salesperson, true loyalty to the firm will be a consequential outcome of high personal loyalty and, therefore, rely on the continued availability of the salesperson. To assist managers in encouraging relationship development between their financial planning sales professionals and their customers, potential antecedents of relationship quality in the perspective of sales ethics and interpersonal selling behaviours are identified and discussed in this paper. / Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2006.

A typical problem with relationship management in a B2B environment is that implementing companies often see the relationship only from their own perspective. In other words, the supplier decides which customer is worth treating as a key customer, without involving the customer in this decision, or vice versa. As a result, even resource-consuming key account customers might move to competitors if they do not value the relationship in the same way as the supplier and see an opportunity to save costs by switching sources. This study develops a better understanding of value in B2B relationships. It investigates the segmentation methods currently used in relationship management and develops a new approach that brings the value perspectives from buyer and seller together. The major contribution of the research, however, is to test the proposition that congruency of the value expectations of buyer and seller will optimize the relationship strength.In the literature there seem two general approaches, the hard and the soft. This research combines these measures to form a single, cohesive measurement of congruency of relationship value, from the perspective of both partners in the relationship. There is a lacuna in the burgeoning literature on relationship management, where trust is often inadequately represented in the research, and where reciprocity of value between relationship partners is often omitted. This research addresses this critical, yet under-researched, issue. It also provides a useful, practical, guide to companies desirous of setting up strong relationships with other organizations by explaining the importance of soft value measures and focusing on shared value expectations in these relationships.The quantitative survey was conducted among buyers and sellers in small and medium sized companies in Germany that are operating on an international level. The empirical results strongly support the research thesis. Implications for theory and practice are provided as well as recommendations for further research.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Commerce, 2002. / Bibliography: leaves 231-291.

Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2007.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-161). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-161). Also available on the Internet.