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Business‐to‐business technology development firms face a unique set of challenges when participating in the opportunities made possible by emerging multi‐sector innovations. The greatest challenge involves the firm’s efforts to influence and shape the market in its favor. This requires strategies for dealing with numerous stakeholders – many with which the firm has had little experience. Because both the risks and pay‐offs are great, the firm needs an analytical and systematic process for stakeholder analysis to provide the basis for stakeholder management strategies. The case of one significant multi‐sector innovation – wireless technologies for integrated traffic management and emergency response – provides an illustrative context for demonstrating a five‐step process for stakeholder analysis.

This paper aims to draw from intimacy theory in examining the mediating effects of interactive communication and social bonds on the trust–commitment relationship.

The study is conducted in the professional services context. Qualitative and quantitative data are gathered from respondents engaged in attorney–client and real estate–client relationships. Unstructured, in-depth interviews are first conducted for use in model development. Study hypotheses are examined and mediation tests are conducted utilizing the serial multiple mediator model proposed by Hayes (2013).

Study findings indicate that intimate relationships in the professional services context are characterized by interactive communication and social bonds, and that the variables act as full mediators of the trust–commitment relationship. Though trust has a positive and significant effect on commitment in isolation, this relationship becomes nonsignificant when simultaneously accounting for the effects of the two variables.

Study findings suggest a need for programs designed to assist professional service providers in the development of intimate customer relationships. The importance of interactive communications and social bonding should be emphasized in these programs.

The study is one of the few empirical papers to investigate the role of intimacy in service relationships and the first to illustrate its mediating effects on the trust–commitment relationship.

This study aims to examine how an organization’s Web-based marketing communication strategies drive feelings of customer gratitude and desired behavioral responses. The study specifically examines how a key cultural characteristic, ethnic identity, works in conjunction with Web quality to influence customers’ gratitude perceptions, thereby driving increases in positive word of mouth, repeat purchase intentions and price tolerance.

A major soccer e-retailer based in the USA collected survey data for the study. The authors examined the direct and indirect effects of Web quality through conditional process analysis.

Study findings indicate that customers’ Web quality and ethnic identity perceptions significantly influence customer gratitude and performance outcomes. Study findings also demonstrate the central mediating role of gratitude on the main and interactive effects of Web quality and ethnic identity.

Study findings suggest that online strategies of cultural-adaptation should go beyond integration of native language to include all key dimensions of website quality, to drive consumer gratitude and ultimately favorable outcomes such as word of mouth, price tolerance and repurchase intentions.

This research demonstrates empirical support for the successful deployment of relationship marketing efforts that impact all three dimensions (affect, cognition and behavioral intention) of customer gratitude.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether high quality relationships buffer or magnify the negative impact of a failed service recovery on subsequent consumer attitudes and behaviors.

A total of 264 online shoppers were surveyed using a structured questionnaire. Respondents were asked to imagine themselves in a hypothetical failed service recovery scenario involving a multi‐channel retailer with whom they shop.

Results from a MANCOVA analysis and SEM modeling indicate that, following a failed service recovery incident, high quality relationships present a challenge for the service provider. In accordance with the hypotheses, consumers with a high level of relationship quality will decrease their repurchase intentions to a greater extent; more strongly and negatively adjust their overall relationship quality; and react to the service recovery effort less favorably than those with lower levels of relationship quality.

The findings suggest that high quality relationships may “raise the bar” of service recovery management, rather than “buffering” firms from service failure.

Service providers should consider the potential implications of customer relationship quality in their service recovery management efforts.

The study provides empirical evidence of the “double‐edge” issue of relationship quality in service recovery management, illustrating the need to incorporate this variable in future service failure/recovery research.

This paper aims to answer two key questions focused on increasing the understanding of consumer relationship proneness (CRP) and its role in customer relationship management. First, is CRP linked to trust and other relationship outcomes (e.g. customer share, adherence)? Second, does the nature of the service exchange (transactional versus relational) affect the association between CRP and commitment and trust?

Data were collected in three contexts: 270 travel industry call center customers, 345 insurance agency clients, and 897 patients responded to our surveys about their business relationships.

Structural modeling analysis and t‐statistic comparisons revealed that CRP is associated with trust and other important outcomes (i.e. share of customer and adherence) and that the nature of the service exchange moderates the association between CRP and commitment and trust. Specifically, as the nature of the service exchange moves from transactional to relational, the influence of CRP on commitment and trust strengthens.

Because CRP cannot be inferred from commonly measured variables, including measures of CRP, is important for relationship marketing and customer relationship management researchers.

Managers need to seek a greater understanding of individual consumer differences and to identify CRP in order to better manage customer relationships.

This paper is the first to report a direct association between CRP and trust. It is also the first to report the moderating influence of relationship type on the association between both CRP and commitment and CRP and trust.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a client-based reputation of business-to-business professional services firms scale (PSF-Rep) which measures clients’ perceptions of the reputation of professional service provider firms. So far, no multidimensional scale exists in the literature to measure the reputation of professional service firms, although the reputation dimensions of importance are likely to be very different from other settings.

From an initial pool of fieldwork-based items, an 18-item PSF-Rep scale is developed, which is validated using several samples – corporate financial decision-makers’ views of their accounting firms in a US national sample and organizational clients of one large legal firm with national presence.

The four-dimensional PSF-Rep scale meets all established reliability and validity criteria. Further, reputation and its dimensions (using PSF-Rep) are positively associated with important marketing outcomes, including word of mouth, loyalty intentions, trust and share of wallet.

As professional service markets become more competitive, firms recognize the importance of a good reputation in attracting customers. This research is the first to propose a psychometrically robust measure to capture client-based reputation of business-to-business professional services firms.

The following annotated list of materials on providing library orientation to users and instructing them in library and information skills is the tenth annual review of this literature and covers publications from 1983. A few items have not been annotated because the compiler was unable to secure a copy of these items.

The purpose of this paper is to recount Stanley C. Hollander's own educational experiences and career paths. This is a reprint (with permission) of Stanley C. Hollander's article which first appeared in the Journal of Macromarketing in 1995.

An autobiographical description of the author's early years.

The paper reveals many of Stanley C. Hollander's personal thoughts, reflections and some regrets.

The paper provides valuable personal insights from the late Stanley C. Hollander.