Dimensions and Levels of Trust: Implications for Commitment to a Relationship

Previous research has found that trust is positively related to commitment in buyer-seller relationships. However, the validity of this finding is questionable because trust has been operationalized in many different ways. For example, prior research has not distinguished among levels of trust (interpersonal or organizational trust) and dimensions or motives of trust (credibility or benevolence). In this study, we distinguish among the levels and dimensions of trust. The results indicate that trust in a sales representative (interpersonal credibility) is more strongly related to commitment than trust in an organization (organizational credibility). In contrast, trust based on organizational benevolence is a stronger predictor of commitment than interpersonal benevolence.     

An Investigation of the Current Practices of In-House Employee Training and Development within Hotels in Scotland

This article presents the results of an itlvestigation of in-house employee training and development practices within hotels in Scotland having 50 or more bedroonls front an operation/ management perspective. Issites pertaining to employee trainitzg and development practices are identified - reduction in st@ turnover; responsibility for staff traitzing and development, time constraints, variety of training methods and training frequency. III the context of training and development, with particular reference to issues ident, a number of recommendations are postulated.     

The emergence of multi-sided platform MNEs: Internalization theory and networks

The rise of the digital economy provides firms across the globe with unique business opportunities. Companies such as Facebook, Alibaba, and Uber are competing in a new multi-sided platform world; the primary focus of these firms, from their inception, is to provide digital infrastructure, information and technology—intangible assets that enable direct interaction or value creation across platforms by linking different user group and complementors, often at the international level. Building on data drawn from multinational multisided Platform corporations (MMPCs) operating in China, we combine insights from internalization theory and network effects in understanding the value creation of such firms. We explore the boundaries of these new “breed” of MNEs in exploiting firm-specific advantages (FSAs) and in creating new knowledge between headquarters and subsidiaries. The findings suggest that internalization theory needs to shift its focus from the ‘boundaries of the firm’ to the ‘boundaries of the local network’. By integrating their internal and external networks of knowledge in adapting their business models in host markets, this new breed of MNEs is more likely than the traditional one to gain a sustainable competitive advantage in the new information age.     

CRM in Data-Rich Multichannel Retailing Environments: A Review and Future Research Directions

Many retailers have collected large amounts of customer data using, for example, loyalty programs. We provide an overview of the extant literature on customer relationship management (CRM), with a specific focus on retailing. We discuss how retailers can gather customer data and how they can analyze these data to gain useful customer insights. We provide an overview of the methods predicting customer responses and behavior over time. We also discuss the existing knowledge on the application of marketing actions in a CRM context, while providing an in-depth discussion on CRM and firm value. We outline future research directions based on the literature review and retail practice insights.     

Interactional service failures in a pseudorelationship: The role of organizational attributions

The current research investigates customer responses to interactional service failures, such as a service provider who is rude or inattentive, or unfriendly. We study interactional failures within pseudorelationships, which exist when a customer interacts repeatedly with the same firm but encounters different employees across service occasions. Empirical results demonstrate that customers’ responses to these interactional failures distinguish between the offending employee and the organization. Dissatisfaction with the organization critically depends on the customer's attribution of globality—how widespread the interactional failure is throughout the organization. Globality attributions and dissatisfaction with the organization can be lowered by excellent past experience with the organization; however, that same positive experience increases dissatisfaction with the offending employee. Thus, customers’ discrimination of the organization and employee in a pseudorelationship can work in the organization's favor after an interactional failure, and managing customers’ attributions of globality should be a managerial priority.     

Entrepreneurial co‐creation: societal impact through open innovation

New open innovation initiatives, such as accelerators, living labs, social innovation labs and open labs, involve for‐profit and not‐for‐profit actors working closely together to co‐create both business value and societal impacts. However, there is a lack of theoretical underpinning to understand how and why co‐creation by actors generate different types of social value in the concurrent pursuit of business and social value. Adopting an inductive case study approach, we find that different types of entrepreneurs who co‐exploit co‐identify opportunities for co‐creation, generate potentially competing social and business values. We develop four propositions relating to how and why profit orientation and key resource contributions of entrepreneurs co‐identifying an opportunity to co‐create decide the nature of social value generated. We discuss avenues for future research and practical implications, underlying the importance of developing entrepreneurialism as ways to generate different social impacts through open innovation approaches, such as co‐creation.     

Service failure and recovery: The impact of relationship factors on customer satisfaction

This research investigated how customers' relationships with a service organization affect their reactions to service failure and recovery. Our conceptual model proposed that customer-organizational relationships help to shape customers' attributions and expectations when service failures occur. The empirical results showed that customers with higher expectations of relationship continuity had lower service recovery expectations after a service failure and also attributed that failure to a less stable cause. Both the lower recovery expectations and the lower stability attributions were associated with greater satisfaction with the service performance after the recovery. These effects appeared to be key processes by which relationships buffer service organizations when service failures occur. Ronald L. Hess Jr. (ron. hess@business.wm.edu) (Ph.D., Virginia Tech) is currently an assistant professor of marketing at the College of William & Mary. His research interests include customer responses to service and product failures; organizational complaint handling; and customer assessments of satisfaction, loyalty, and service quality. He has published his research inMarketing Letters and several conference proceedings. Shankar Ganesan (sganesan @bpa.arizona.edu) (Ph.D., University of Florida) is an associate professor of marketing and Lisle and Rosslyn Payne Fellow in Marketing at the Eller College of Business and Public Administration, University of Arizona. His research interests focus on the areas of interorganizational relationships, buyer-seller negotiations, service failure and recovery, new product innovation, and E-marketing. He is the author of several articles that have appeared in leading academic journals, including theJournal of Marketing Research, theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Applied Psychology. He currently serves on the editorial review board of theJournal of Marketing Research and theJournal of Marketing. Noreen M. Klein (nklein@vt.edu) (Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University) is currently an associate professor of marketing at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Her research interests include consumer decision making and the behavioral aspects of pricing, and her research has been published in the theJournal of Consumer Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Making, and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science.     

The elderly:Still the “invisible and forgotten” market segment

The needs of the elderly in many product and service areas are clearly different from those of the rest of the population. These needs could be fulfilled at a profit if marketers responded in adequate measure. The authors present evidence that marketers have made some progress in this direction, but much more is needed. The authors present various actions in terms of product, price, place, promotion, and packaging that marketers can implement in order to meet the neglected needs of the elderly. These actions not only contribute to the welfare of the elderly, but they are likely to be profitable for the marketers as well. Finally, the authors identify some important issues in public policy that relate to the elderly.     

The embedded sales force: Connecting buying and selling organizations

Business-to-business firms are increasingly focusing on building long-term partnering relationships with key customers. Salespeople are often responsible for managing these relationships. To be effective as relationship managers, salespeople need to be embedded in both their firm’s and customers’ organizations. They need to have extensive knowledge of their customers’ business and also know and be able to leverage their firm’s resources to develop offerings tailored to their customers’ needs. Their companies and sales managers need to use different approaches to manage and support salespeople in this new role. In this paper, we examine some issues affecting the interfaces between elements of the embedded sales force and suggest some directions for future research and methods for examining these issues.     

Online narratives about medical tourism in Malaysia and Thailand: a qualitative content analysis

This study explored the written online narratives about medical tourism in Malaysia and Thailand using qualitative content analysis. The Google search engine was used for narrative search. Multiple search terms including medical, health, wellness tourism; treatment abroad; medical or health travel; treatment, surgery, or plastic surgery; dental treatment or braces were used to obtain related blog posts, discussions, and forums via a purposeful sampling method. A total of 43 online narratives were included in this study. Themes were then created after an iterative analysis of the selected online comments or posts. The push factors that act as motivators were: cost (100%), attractions (81%), availability of facilitators (62%), physician’s background and expertise (58%), bandwagon effect (42%). The majority of the subjects (88%) stated that they were satisfied with the outcomes of their medical treatments received in Malaysia and Thailand.