Nas empresas prestadoras de serviços, a manutenção e a ampliação das trocas relacionais reforçam a retenção de clientes como sendo um diferencial perante a concorrência. Para as empresas se habilitarem a adotar estratégias de retenção de clientes, é fundamental que conheçam o processo pelo qual seu cliente passa nos encontros de serviços, identificando os diversos construtos que estimulam a conquista e a retenção de clientes. Para o desenvolvimento da pesquisa, foi realizado o desenvolvimento e a testagem de um Modelo Teórico contemplando os construtos Valor Percebido, Reputação do Provedor de Serviços, Confiança e Custos de Troca como determinantes da Retenção de Clientes, considerando suas respectivas hipóteses. Para tanto, foi realizado o levantamento teórico que aborda a Retenção de Clientes, bem como a compreensão e análise dos demais construtos que antecedem e que afetam estrategicamente a competitividade de um provedor de serviços. Posteriormente, foi efetuado um estudo quantitativo de caráter descritivo, por meio da implementação de uma survey. A análise dos resultados foi feita com base em estatísticas multivariadas, utilizando-se a Modelagem de Equações Estruturais para se observar e analisar os elementos que compõem o fenômeno em estudo. A amostra foi composta por 269 empresas-clientes dos planos de saúde coletivos empresariais da região de Caxias do Sul. Os resultados da pesquisa apontam que o Modelo Teórico Reespecificado apresentou índices de ajustes satisfatórios, considerando-se o seu ineditismo. Além disso, foi verificada a moderação do tempo de cliente, através da Regressão Hierárquica, sendo que esta não confirmou sua relação entre os custos de troca e a retenção de clientes. As contribuições de destaque são a comprovação que o valor percebido influencia positivamente a reputação do provedor de serviços; que a reputação do provedor de serviços impacta diretamente na confiança e nos custos de troca; que os custos de troca se configuram como determinates da retenção de clientes; e que a retenção de clientes é positivamente influenciada pela reputação no provedor de serviços em um contexto relacional. / Submitted by Marcelo Teixeira (mvteixeira@ucs.br) on 2014-04-28T13:19:39Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Luciene Eberle.pdf: 4832211 bytes, checksum: 6bf56e4c416976c44ab4cdb24d33a44f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-04-28T13:19:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Luciene Eberle.pdf: 4832211 bytes, checksum: 6bf56e4c416976c44ab4cdb24d33a44f (MD5) / In service firms, the maintenance and expansion of relational exchanges strengthen customer retention as a differential among the competitors. In order to qualify companies to adopt strategies of customer retention, it is essential that they know the process by which their customer goes through in service encounters, identifying the various constructs that encourage achievement and customer retention. To develop this research, a Theoretical Model was developed and tested considering the following constructs: Perceived Value, Reputation of Service Provider, Reliability and Cost of Exchange, as antecedents of Customer Retention, considering their respective hypotheses. Posteriorly, it was conducted a descriptive study of the literature that makes an approach in Customer Retention, as well as the understanding and analysis of the constructs that precede and affect strategically the competitiveness of a service provider. Later, the study was continued using a descriptive quantitative research, by means of a survey. The analysis of the results was made using multivariate statistics, using the Structural Equation Modeling to observe and analyze the elements of the phenomenon under study. The sample consisted of 269 client companies of the business health plan groups in the region of Caxias do Sul. The results of the research show that the Theorical Re-Specified Model presented satisfactory values, yet considering being unedited. Furthermore, it was verified the moderation time of the clients, through Hierarchical Regression, and this did not confirmed the relationship between switching costs and customer retention. The most important contributions are related to the evidences that prove that the perceived value positively influences the reputation of the service provider; the reputation of the service provider direct impacton trust and cost changes; the costs of trade showed a huge positive influence on customer retention; furthermore, the customer retention is a relation that’s positively influenced by the service provider reputation, in a relational context.

Distributed systems like e-commerce and e-market places, peer-to-peer networks, social networks, and mobile ad hoc networks require cooperation among the participating entities to guarantee the formation and sustained existence of network services. The reliability of interactions among anonymous entities is a significant issue in such environments. The distributed entities establish connections to interact with others, which may include selfish and misbehaving entities and result in bad experiences. Therefore, trustworthiness evaluation using trust management techniques has become a significant issue in securing these environments to allow entities decide on the reliability and trustworthiness of other entities, besides it helps coping with defection problems and stimulating entities to cooperate. Recent models on evaluating trustworthiness in distributed systems have heavily focused on assessing trustworthiness of entities and isolate misbehaviours based on single trust metrics. Less effort has been put on the investigation of the subjective nature and differences in the way trustworthiness is perceived to produce a composite multidimensional trust metrics to overcome the limitation of considering single trust metric. In the light of this context, this thesis concerns the evaluation of entities’ trustworthiness by the design and investigation of trust metrics that are computed using multiple properties of trust and considering environment. Based on the concept of probabilistic theory of trust management technique, this thesis models trust systems and designs cooperation techniques to evaluate trustworthiness in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). A recommendation based trust model with multi-parameters filtering algorithm, and multidimensional metric based on social and QoS trust model are proposed to secure MANETs. Effectiveness of each of these models in evaluating trustworthiness and discovering misbehaving nodes prior to interactions, as well as their influence on the network performance has been investigated. The results of investigating both the trustworthiness evaluation and the network performance are promising.

Nas empresas prestadoras de serviços, a manutenção e a ampliação das trocas relacionais reforçam a retenção de clientes como sendo um diferencial perante a concorrência. Para as empresas se habilitarem a adotar estratégias de retenção de clientes, é fundamental que conheçam o processo pelo qual seu cliente passa nos encontros de serviços, identificando os diversos construtos que estimulam a conquista e a retenção de clientes. Para o desenvolvimento da pesquisa, foi realizado o desenvolvimento e a testagem de um Modelo Teórico contemplando os construtos Valor Percebido, Reputação do Provedor de Serviços, Confiança e Custos de Troca como determinantes da Retenção de Clientes, considerando suas respectivas hipóteses. Para tanto, foi realizado o levantamento teórico que aborda a Retenção de Clientes, bem como a compreensão e análise dos demais construtos que antecedem e que afetam estrategicamente a competitividade de um provedor de serviços. Posteriormente, foi efetuado um estudo quantitativo de caráter descritivo, por meio da implementação de uma survey. A análise dos resultados foi feita com base em estatísticas multivariadas, utilizando-se a Modelagem de Equações Estruturais para se observar e analisar os elementos que compõem o fenômeno em estudo. A amostra foi composta por 269 empresas-clientes dos planos de saúde coletivos empresariais da região de Caxias do Sul. Os resultados da pesquisa apontam que o Modelo Teórico Reespecificado apresentou índices de ajustes satisfatórios, considerando-se o seu ineditismo. Além disso, foi verificada a moderação do tempo de cliente, através da Regressão Hierárquica, sendo que esta não confirmou sua relação entre os custos de troca e a retenção de clientes. As contribuições de destaque são a comprovação que o valor percebido influencia positivamente a reputação do provedor de serviços; que a reputação do provedor de serviços impacta diretamente na confiança e nos custos de troca; que os custos de troca se configuram como determinates da retenção de clientes; e que a retenção de clientes é positivamente influenciada pela reputação no provedor de serviços em um contexto relacional. / In service firms, the maintenance and expansion of relational exchanges strengthen customer retention as a differential among the competitors. In order to qualify companies to adopt strategies of customer retention, it is essential that they know the process by which their customer goes through in service encounters, identifying the various constructs that encourage achievement and customer retention. To develop this research, a Theoretical Model was developed and tested considering the following constructs: Perceived Value, Reputation of Service Provider, Reliability and Cost of Exchange, as antecedents of Customer Retention, considering their respective hypotheses. Posteriorly, it was conducted a descriptive study of the literature that makes an approach in Customer Retention, as well as the understanding and analysis of the constructs that precede and affect strategically the competitiveness of a service provider. Later, the study was continued using a descriptive quantitative research, by means of a survey. The analysis of the results was made using multivariate statistics, using the Structural Equation Modeling to observe and analyze the elements of the phenomenon under study. The sample consisted of 269 client companies of the business health plan groups in the region of Caxias do Sul. The results of the research show that the Theorical Re-Specified Model presented satisfactory values, yet considering being unedited. Furthermore, it was verified the moderation time of the clients, through Hierarchical Regression, and this did not confirmed the relationship between switching costs and customer retention. The most important contributions are related to the evidences that prove that the perceived value positively influences the reputation of the service provider; the reputation of the service provider direct impacton trust and cost changes; the costs of trade showed a huge positive influence on customer retention; furthermore, the customer retention is a relation that’s positively influenced by the service provider reputation, in a relational context.

Distributed systems like e-commerce and e-market places, peer-to-peer networks, social networks, and mobile ad hoc networks require cooperation among the participating entities to guarantee the formation and sustained existence of network services. The reliability of interactions among anonymous entities is a significant issue in such environments. The distributed entities establish connections to interact with others, which may include selfish and misbehaving entities and result in bad experiences. Therefore, trustworthiness evaluation using trust management techniques has become a significant issue in securing these environments to allow entities decide on the reliability and trustworthiness of other entities, besides it helps coping with defection problems and stimulating entities to cooperate. Recent models on evaluating trustworthiness in distributed systems have heavily focused on assessing trustworthiness of entities and isolate misbehaviours based on single trust metrics. Less effort has been put on the investigation of the subjective nature and differences in the way trustworthiness is perceived to produce a composite multidimensional trust metrics to overcome the limitation of considering single trust metric. In the light of this context, this thesis concerns the evaluation of entities’ trustworthiness by the design and investigation of trust metrics that are computed using multiple properties of trust and considering environment. Based on the concept of probabilistic theory of trust management technique, this thesis models trust systems and designs cooperation techniques to evaluate trustworthiness in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). A recommendation based trust model with multi-parameters filtering algorithm, and multidimensional metric based on social and QoS trust model are proposed to secure MANETs. Effectiveness of each of these models in evaluating trustworthiness and discovering misbehaving nodes prior to interactions, as well as their influence on the network performance has been investigated. The results of investigating both the trustworthiness evaluation and the network performance are promising. / Ministry of Higher Education in Libya and the Libyan Cultural Attaché bureau in London