Online relationship marketing and affective customer commitment – The mediating role of trust

The pervasive use of information technology has implications for consumer relationship management among financial services organisations. There is a need for increased understanding of how digital channels might influence the development and maintenance of firm–customer relationships and in particular the role of the Internet upon commitment and trust outcomes. Thus, this research aims to determine the relationship between online relationship marketing practices and affective customer commitment, and how this relationship is mediated by online channel trust. Data were collected from 200 online retail bank customers and Structural Equation Modelling was used to test the impact of five key online relationship marketing practices on affective commitment, and how trust mediates these relationships. We found that advocacy and collaboration have a direct relationship with affective commitment, while trust mediates the influence of engagement and personalisation on affective commitment. The article highlights the significance of trust in technology when using online channels to build customer relationships.     

Nigerian SMEs: Commitment and loyalty to their banks

Commitment has a crucial role to play in underpinning long-term business relationships, and as such, is well established in the related academic literature. Limited research does, however, exist pertaining to the specific relationships between SMEs and their banks. This paper presents and assesses commitment relationship framework that seeks to evaluate such relationships. Various validated scale-sets from the existing studies are combined here to assess commitment, advocacy and repurchase intention. Data were collected from 199 SMEs via interviews with owners or senior (financial) managers. Their assessment involved exploratory factor analysis to determine underlying data structure, with internal reliability assessment of the identified factors. Commitment is established around two components; affective and calculative, whilst advocacy and repurchase intention converge into a single behavioural intentions factor. The two-dimensional presentation of commitment and behavioural intentions are also distinct. Originality lies in the validation of commitment and behavioural intention constructs within this specific business arena and geographical location, as well as showcasing research that involves engagement with smaller organisations rather than their larger counterparts in the consideration of bank performance.     

How to lengthen,deepen and broaden customer–firm relationships with online financial services?

This study aims to examine the influence of online relationship marketing on consolidating online customer–firm relationships. Through developing an empirical model, this research explores the links between online relationship bonds (financial, social and structural bond), online relationship satisfaction and commitment, and online relationship length, depth and breadth with the online financial services. Data from 686 online customers of a security corporation indicates that online relationship bonds influence online relationship satisfaction and commitment, except for the link between financial bond and relationship commitment. Results also identify that online relationship satisfaction influences relationship length and depth, whereas online relationship commitment has a positive impact on relationship length, depth and breadth. In sum, this study concludes that financial bond is the most important attribute in enhancing online relationship length, whereas structural bond contributes a lot to online relationship depth and breadth.     

Relationships and the internet: The mediating role of a relationship banker

The role technology plays in building (or weakening) relationships with customers has become increasingly debated since the advent of the internet. Arguments, and some emerging empirical evidence, have shown that there is support for both sides of the argument; technology can both build and erode customer relationships. In this paper the authors seek to add further insight into this inquiry. The paper examines relationships that primarily exist within a technology context (in this case the internet) compared to those that primarily exist in a traditional face-to-face context (in this case the branch). The mediating role of a relationship banker is used to explore these dynamics further. Results show that the channel which the customer primarily adopts as the mode of interaction makes little difference to the strength of the relationship. What makes a difference, in terms of trust, is the existence of a ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ one-to-one relationship with an assigned banker. Intriguingly, the effects of the relationship banker are dependent on whether the customer uses primarily the branch versus the internet.     

Effects of commitment on intentional loyalty at the person-to-person and person-to-firm levels

This study explores how customers’ affective commitment and calculative commitment to the personal adviser and bank, respectively, affect their intentional loyalty to the personal adviser and bank. Data were collected using a web survey of mass affluent customers of a major Swedish bank. Responses were measured and analysed using factor, correlation, and regression analyses. The results reveal that the person-to-person and person-to-firm loyalty categories are influenced by affective and calculative commitment to the personal advisor and by affective commitment to the bank, but not by calculative commitment to the bank. Moreover, there is a strong relationship between customer loyalty to the personal adviser and to the bank. It can be concluded that affective commitment has a stronger overall impact on customer loyalty than does calculative commitment, indicating the importance of creating affective ties with customers, and that personal advisers are central to bank – customer relationships. The importance of financial issues to mass affluent customers implies that both affective commitment and calculative commitment to the personal adviser are important in building customer loyalty to a bank or brand.     

Four facts about relationship lending: The case of Chile 2012-2019

Using confidential credit-registry data on the universe of bank loans, we characterize the monthly behavior of relationship lending in Chile between 2012 and 2019. We focus on two aspects of relationships between firms and banks: their closeness, and their concentration. We uncover four stylized facts about relationships lending: their behavior through time, cyclical properties, properties of credit contracts in relationships, and the effect of relationships on monetary policy transmission. Our results show that relationship lending plays an important role in credit allocation and in the implementation of financial policies.     

美联储利率承诺的宏观经济效应

作为金融危机后美联储非常规货币政策的重要手段之一,利率承诺对美国宏观经济变化的影响颇受关注。本文选取美国2001年1月至2011年8月的月度数据,以2008年12月为分界点,采用VAR模型实证检验了美联储非常规货币政策实施前后利率承诺政策对金融市场和实体经济的影响。研究结果表明:(1)零利率承诺缩短了金融市场对基准利率变动响应的时滞,但作用持续期明显缩短,其中股票市场和商业房地产市场的响应尤为明显;(2)零利率承诺政策有利于提升消费者信心,并抑制通货紧缩;(3)零利率承诺措施对实体经济的影响要大于对金融市场的影响。     

Relationship disconnect in retail banking

It has been established that increasing the role of technology in a service organisation can serve to reduce costs and improve service reliability. It is argued, however, that there remains an important role for personalised relationships in the delivery of any service proposition. Throughout this paper both of these perspectives will be discussed and an attempt is made to reconcile these apparently opposing views in the emerging age of technology-enabled remote relationships. Findings from a longitudinal research study with a large UK case bank that focused on the area of remote relationships are revisited and reinterpreted with management from the case bank in question. Through this reflective lens the bank's recent strategic decision to no longer proactively relationship manage its personal customer base is examined. In light of this deliberate relationship disconnection strategy key marketing implications are discussed.     

Cultural attributes and risk perception: the moderating role of different types of research and development

Drawing on the grid–group culture theory, this study examines hypotheses to explain how the cultural attributes of an organization influence professionals’ perceptions of risk in the context of research and development (R&D) activities. Specifically, we explore whether two dimensions of cultural attributes – the grid dimension and the group dimension – affect organizational commitment and risk perception. We also investigate whether the impact of the cultural attributes on risk perception is mediated by organizational commitment and whether different types of R&D activities – applied research and developmental research – serve as a moderating variable on the relationships among cultural attributes, organizational commitment, and risk perception. The partial least squares method was used to analyze data collected from full-time senior researchers with over five years of experience at a large technology institute. Our findings indicate that cultural attributes influence the risk perception of R&D professionals through the mediating function of organizational commitment. Further, we found that different types of R&D activities have moderating effects on the relationship between organizational commitment and risk perception.     

Money is an experience good: Competition and trust in the private provision of money

The interplay between competition and trust as efficiency-enhancing mechanisms in the private provision of money is studied. With commitment, trust is automatically achieved and competition ensures efficiency. Without commitment, competition plays no role. Trust does play a role but requires a bound on efficiency. Stationary inflation must be non-negative and, therefore, the Friedman rule cannot be achieved. The quality of money can be observed only after its purchasing capacity is realized. In this sense, money is an experience good.     

Insurance broker–client relationships: An assessment of quality and duration

This study examines the relationship between brokers and clients in the UK insurance industry. The overriding concern is evaluation of the duration of the different stages in a relationship and characteristics that have an impact on the quality of a relationship. As in previous work, trust, commitment and customer satisfaction positively influence relationship outcomes but not in equal measures and have different impacts at different stages. A model describing these stages, unique to this relationship, is tested but the impact of different characteristics is still inconclusive. Service quality is found to be a mediating variable and has significant impact. The results, based on a sample of 118 clients, reveal that relationships need to be re-examined in an industry and time-specific way. Additional research issues are identified.     

Anonymous markets and monetary trading

We study infinite-horizon monetary economies characterized by trading frictions that originate from random pairwise meetings, and commitment and enforcement limitations. We prove that introducing occasional trade in ‘centralized markets’ opens the door to an informal enforcement scheme that sustains a non-monetary efficient allocation. All is required is that trading partners be patient and their actions be observable. We then present a matching environment in which trade may occur in large markets and yet agents’ trading paths cross at most once. This allows the construction of models in which infinitely lived agents trade in competitive markets where money plays an essential role.     

The interplay of salesperson’s job performance and satisfaction in the financial services industry

Research has not yet provided conclusive confirmation or disconfirmation of any model that discusses the relationship between job satisfaction (JS) and job performance (JP). This article reviews the relationship in the financial services industry setting and examines in line with the precedents (perceived organizational support, role ambiguity, role conflict (RC), work-family conflict (WFC), emotional exhaustion (EE)) and the consequences (organizational commitment). Findings suggest that, in the financial services industry, JP causes JS and has a positive effect on organizational commitment. This study also finds that WFC serves as an antecedent to RC, EE and JS. Most importantly, the finding that WFC is significantly related to RC is new and thus needs to be confirmed in different industry settings.     

The Impact of Social Influence Pressure on the Ethical Decision Making of Professional Accountants: Australian and New Zealand Evidence

This paper reports the results of an online survey examining whether inappropriate social influence pressure, in the form of obedience and conformity pressure generated by superiors and colleagues, influences the ethical decision making of members of four professional accounting institutes in two countries, namely Australia and New Zealand. We also evaluate the effects of organisational and professional commitment and what role, if any, such commitment plays in mitigating inappropriate social influence pressure. The results indicate that despite the members of the professional bodies displaying a high level of ethical judgement, obedience and conformity pressure do influence their ethical decision making. Furthermore, high levels of organisational and/or professional commitment were found to mitigate inappropriate social influence pressure, in that respondents who exhibit high levels of organisational and/or professional commitment are less likely to succumb to inappropriate social influence pressure. Our findings contribute to an understanding of the influences on ethical decision making by professional accountants, which could make workplace environments more conducive for ethical decision making by focusing on reducing inappropriate social influence pressure by taking steps to increase organisational and/or professional commitment.     

Perceived performance,equity sensitivity and organisational commitment among bank managers

This study looks at equity sensitivity and organisational commitment and considers the possible moderation role that managers’ perception of organisational performance may have. Using an equity theory perspective, the constructs of equity sensitivity and organisational commitment, as well as the effect of perceived firm performance, are considered. A research model linking their interaction is proposed. Data are collected from managers of a commercial bank and moderated regression is used to test the hypotheses. Results support a positive effect of equity sensitivity on organisational commitment whereas high or low perceived firm performance is found to have a determining effect on this relationship.     

Professionalism, organizational commitment and job satisfaction in an accounting organization

With growth in the number of professionals employed in organizations, concern has been expressed over potential conflict between the professionalism of these employees and their commitment to the organization. Empirical studies examining the relationships between professionalism, organizational commitment and job satisfaction have reported inconsistent results. This paper examines these variables in an organization setting involving several field offices of a “Big Eight” U.S. accounting firm. Accountants who reported high levels of professionalism also reported high levels of organizational commitment. Additionally, both professionalism and organizational commitment were strongly related to job satisfaction.     

Organizational commitment and performance in a professional accounting firm

In recent years, the concept of employee commitment to the organization has received increased attention as a determinant of employee performance. Research on the relationship between these two variables, however, has produced conflicting results. The study reported herein examines the relationship between a group of antecedent variables and organizational commitment, and the relationship between commitment and employee performance. The study was carried out using a sample of 123 junior-level staff accountants and a validation sample of 46 senior-level accountants. It was found that for both samples, work-related antecedent variables influenced commitment whereas personal variables did not. With respect to the commitment-performance relationship, the results differed between the two samples. At the junior-level, performance was found to be influenced by a willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization, whereas at the senior-level, performance was found to be influenced by a desire to maintain membership in the organization.     

Relationship marketing in the financial services industry: The importance of customer education,participation and problem management for customer loyalty

The effectiveness of relationship marketing efforts in services selling is to a large extent dependent on customers' commitment to increase the depth and breadth of their relationship with the organisation. In this study, we seek to extend current thinking by presenting a model that examines the relative importance of customer education, participation and problem management in driving customer loyalty. To test the relationships between these variables, we use data collected from 1,268 clients of a global financial services firm. Overall, the results support the hypothesised model and show customer education to be the strongest determinant of client loyalty. Current findings provide implications for multi-product financial institutions that are of theoretical and practical interest alike.     

A key driver for the mixed relationship between loan risk premiums and collateral: Evidence from China

In spite of both ex-ante adverse selection and ex-post moral hazard theories supporting this mixed observable relationship between loan risk premiums and collateral, any plausible explanation for this mixed result still remains conspicuously absent in the literature. Based on a novel Chinese bank loan dataset, we show that collateral is negatively correlated with loan risk premiums, which is consistent with the ex-ante theory. However, after controlling for the purpose of the loan, mixed relationships between collateral and loan risk premiums for different types of collateral are obtained. The specific loan purpose plays an important role in determining loan risk premiums. We demonstrate that the mixed empirical results found in the existing literature to date may result from different economic characteristics of both collateral type and loan purpose, wherein particular liquidity may be of first-order importance in finally helping to demystify the mixed relationships.     

Branding and relationships: Customer and supplier perspectives

This paper explores and investigates the role of branding within financial services. Specifically, the study aims to assess the importance of branding and its associated elements including brand image and brand experience in the relationships that exist between consumers and their financial brands. It aims to achieve this through research, which identifies gaps between the managerial and consumer perspectives on branding in relationships in retail financial services. It is well established that the characteristics of services are different from those of manufactured goods and that service personnel play a central role in the services experience. Moreover, the concept of relationship marketing within services proclaims the importance of one-to-one relationships between businesses and customers as well as relationships between consumers and their brands. Drawing from the fields of brand management, relationship marketing and services marketing, this research aims to investigate the perceptional differences between consumers and suppliers in relation to the importance of branding in financial service relationships. The research findings indicate that brand experience appears to be far more salient than brand image in shaping and building meaningful and lasting brand perceptions and promoting customer retention.