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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a customer engagement-enabling platform on a value captured by the firm and value acquired by the customer. It explores the relevance of relational and expertise value for customers during the engagement process so as to ensure positive referrals about the service provider.

Using a sample of 482 students, the study examines the customer engagement efforts of professional institutes that provide training to prepare for the civil service examinations of the Union Public Service Commission. The survey is confined to central areas of New Delhi, India. Statistical techniques including confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling are used to analyse the data, and reliability and validity tests are performed.

The findings reveal the indispensable role of service providers as creators of a meaningful effective learning process and of interpersonal relations with customers for generating more business through customer referrals.

The study validated the moderating role of relational value between customers’ expertise value and their referrals on the basis of motivation theory, which asserts that customers’ motivation to contribute to the organisation is driven by the individuals’ extrinsic relational need for belongingness, acceptance by like-minded individuals, and feedback, recognition and respect from employees of the organisation.

The study contributes to the existing literature by integrating the well-developed social exchange and motivation theory so as to investigate the factors that propel customers’ positive word of mouth for the service provider.

Customers play a key role in value creation. Not surprisingly, research has investigated customers’ motivations to engage in the creation of value. Thus, this study aims to assess the link between mood-regulatory processes and customer participation in value creation.

This study develops a model that relates mood-regulatory processes to customer participation and customer value creation, and tests it with a sample of 419 hotel customers, using partial least squares estimation.

It is found that mood clarity relates directly with customer relational value; mood monitoring relates directly with customer participation as well as directly and indirectly with customer economic and relational value; and mood repair relates directly with customer participation and customer economic value, as well as indirectly with customer economic and relational value.

This is a cross-sectional study limited only to hotels in Iran. This is the first study to evaluate the relationship between mood regulation with customer participation and value creation. Hospitality service organizations interested in promoting customer participation may consider mood as a segmentation criterion.

Value creation theory was applied to identify the relationship among customer mood regulation, participation, economic value and relational value, as it is first attempted in the hospitality studies.

Customers often think that innovations, such as self-service technologies (SSTs), are introduced by service providers to cut costs rather than extend customer service levels. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customers use such attributions to adjust their perceptions of relational value.

Drawing on attribution and relationship marketing theories, this study proposes a conceptual model that includes benefit and cost attributions, their antecedents, and consequences. Survey data came from customers of a supermarket that recently introduced self-scanning technology.

Attributions mediate the impact of SST performance on relational value. This value is highest for customers with high-benefit and low-cost attributions; customers with low-benefit and low-cost attributions exhibit detrimental effects on the exchange relationship with the firm. Characterized by low self-efficacy, low education, and low spending, these latter customers appear ambivalent and possibly confused about the provider’s motives for introducing SST.

This research has important implications for service managers responsible for communicating technological innovations to customers. A clear reason for the introduction should be provided, to stimulate customers’ attribution and prevent ambivalence among those with low self-efficacy and low education.

Most SST research focusses on adoption, non-adoption, and disadoption. The more subtle responses by customers facing a new SST and the consequences for the customer-provider exchange relationship, as addressed herein, have been left largely unexplored.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of customer participation in a service delivery process by designing and testing an empirical model with the employees’ point of view in mind.

Using data collected from 166 pairs of customers and service employees in the context of professional financial insurance services, this study uses partial least square path modeling in SmartPLS to analyze the proposed model.

The results of the study show that customer participation produces positive effects on employees’ job satisfaction only if such participation minimizes job stress and meets employees’ relational needs. Job stress and satisfaction were strong predictors for organizational commitment, but the proposed relationship between relational value and organizational commitment was not found.

This study suggests that customer participation can be a win-win situation for employees and the service firm. Employees who create relational value with their customers effectively enjoy their jobs more and are more likely to build and maintain long-term relationships with their service firm.

The findings highlighted the roles of the customer and the employee and indicated the heuristic value of viewing job satisfaction and organizational commitment as consequences of customer participation. This can enhance the understanding of how encounters should be designed to support employees and improve the co-creation of value.

The purpose of this research is to understand the practices of electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) and to establish a process model for online customers' relational assets creation.

Through a case study of a Taiwanese securities company, qualitative data are gathered on the process where online customers' relational assets evolved. This research is primarily based on 20 interviews of the case company. Four managers from the other two securities brokerage companies are also consulted in order to validate and complement the collected information.

The model reveals the relational assets creation as a four‐phase process: establish online relational tie, identify the features of online customers, enhance self‐determined behavior, and exploit research & development advantage for long‐term relationships.

In presenting an integrated view of the relational assets creation issue of eCRM has served as a step in establishing a process model. For each phase of the model, key managerial activities were identified that may facilitate online relationship building. The implications of the lessons learned and its future research directions are also discussed.

This study’s aim is to investigate whether offering a co-production opportunity as a choice or as the only means of service rendering influences customer value creation and satisfaction. This research incorporates two empirically supported sources of co-created value, relational and economic, and it investigates a new dimension of co-created value, individual value. The study focus supports the need for more empirically based guidance for the management and design of co-creation processes.

A 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design was utilized to test the choice/no-choice condition. Data were collected through a survey of 214 respondents who were selected on the basis of their familiarity with the context of the experimental scenarios.

The results show that co-production as an option for service rendering has a stronger positive impact on value creation than does the context when co-production is necessary. Choice was found to positively influence relational and economic value. Value creation was found to mediate the choice and satisfaction relationship. Individual value had the strongest relative impact on satisfaction but was not significantly related to choice.

Designers and managers of co-production-enabling processes can enhance customer and organizational outcomes simply by offering customers a choice when considering whether or not to engage in co-production.

This originality of this study lies in the supporting evidence found for the influence of choice on value creation and the empirical corroboration for individual value creation as a source of co-created value. The on-line context of this study in this context is also novel.

This paper seeks to investigate the value enterprise customers perceive in information sharing services and the consequences of that perceived value for relationship intention.

An impact model was developed to assess the associations between the functional and relational value perceived by enterprise customers in regards to information sharing services and their relationship commitment and loyalty intention. The model was tested on 81 firms which had participated in e‐business projects subsidized by the Taiwan Government. Partial least squares was conducted to assess hypothesized information sharing marketing effects.

The findings suggest that functional and relational value enterprise customers perceive in information sharing services will positively influence their relationship intention.

The proposed model provides an expanded view of the marketing effects of an information sharing service. Researchers believe this work to be a starting point for the research of the marketing effects of an information sharing service.

The research results of this study reveal that information sharing not only can be used to support supply chain activities (i.e. facilitating supply chain management), but also can be used to support marketing activities (i.e. enhancing customer relationships).

A key issue for B2B industrial firms is to better understand the drivers of customer value and contract renewal decisions, due to the long-term supplier-customer relationships. When the B2B firm is operating across national boundaries, there is added complexity to the renewal decision, because the drivers are also influenced by cultural considerations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the main drivers of customer value creation and contract renewal intentions, for a large B2B firm operating in both the USA and Japan and compare the two data sets.

The company, which provided the data for the study, is a US Fortune 100 firm in the facilities management industry, operating worldwide. Data were collected using a survey questionnaire from a sample of the firm’s customers in two of its largest markets, the USA and Japan. The authors used PLS to analyze the data, and compare and contrast the drivers.

The findings highlight both similarities and differences across the two countries for the most influential drivers of customer value and contract renewal. Although no differences were found when examining the effect of relational drivers on contract renewal, differences were observed for utilitarian drivers: product quality and price.

The authors expected the relational drivers of contract renewal to be stronger in the high-context culture of Japan, but found that there were no differences with the US market. While relational drivers are important in the decision-making process in both countries, it seems that managers should focus more on price considerations in Japan. In contrast, product quality is relatively more important in the USA, when negotiating contract renewals with customers.

Noticeably absent from the B2B services literature is its application to international markets. In particular, research is lacking on the specific drivers of customer value and contract renewal intentions in the USA and Japan, despite the importance of long-term on-going contractual relationships in these markets. This study has provided additional insights into the complex world of contract renewal between international buyers and sellers of large industrial systems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of customer participation in the service delivery process by designing and testing an empirical model with the customers’ point of view in mind.

Data are collected from 176 customers in the context of professional financial insurance services. The proposed model is analyzed with partial least squares (PLS) path modeling in SmartPLS 2.0 software.

The results of the study show that customer participation produces positive effects on customer satisfaction and affective commitment through the customer relational value. Affective commitment is a strong predictor of repurchase intention, but no relationship between customer satisfaction and repurchase intention was found.

This study suggests that customer participation can be a win-win situation for customers and the service firm. Customers who create relational value with their service providers effectively enjoy their services more and are more likely to build and maintain long-term relationships with their service firm.

The findings highlight the roles of the customer and indicate the heuristic value of viewing customer satisfaction and affective commitment as consequences of customer participation. By identifying the effects of customer participation in the service interaction, organizations can determine optimum roles for customers in the service delivery process that will yield a more efficient use of organization resources and improve operational performance.

Relational engagement is offered as a framework to describe how buyers and sellers conduct exchange. Relational engagement is conceptualized as a higher-order construct comprising three dimensions: legal bonds, knowledge exchange and co-production. This paper aims to examine the efficacy of the construct by testing its influence on buyer–perceived seller brand equity.

An online survey of 401 US-based industrial buyers was conducted. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Empirical analysis supports the proposed conceptualization of relational engagement, as well as its influence on seller brand equity through influencing buyer-perceived relationship effectiveness.

Relational engagement offers a template to sellers for engaging organizational buyers. A relational engagement strategy has favorable implications for seller brand equity.

Relational engagement offers a comprehensive strategic perspective on inter-organizational exchange, moving beyond tactical approaches. The framework reflects the continuum of exchange, incorporating transactional-dominant and relationship-dominant forms of inter-organizational marketing practices.