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This paper reports the results of a three-year-long research on business relationships, relying on qualitative data gathered through multiple-case study research of four focal companies operating in Australia. The industry settings are as follows: steel construction, vegetable oils trading, aluminum and steel can manufacture, and imaging solutions. The research analyzes two main aspects of relationships: structure and process. This paper deals with structure describing it by the most desired features of intercompany relationships for each focal company. The primary research data have been coded drawing on extant research into business relationships. The main outcome of this part of the research is a five construct model composed by trust, commitment, bonds, distance, and information sharing that accounts for all informants’ utterances about relationship structure.

This paper aims to explore how senior business to business (B2B) marketing managers within a collectivist culture, contribute to knowledge development by interacting with staff in customer organizations to produce a co-owned marketing strategy.

A qualitative research strategy incorporating an open-ended questionnaire was used to collect data from 15 senior B2B marketing managers in three Korean companies that deployed the customer-centred approach. The grounded theory technique (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) and the mind map method (Burgess-Allen and Owen-Smith, 2010) were used to show how senior Korean marketing managers’ thoughts are processed and knowledge transfer occurs.

The findings show that a governance mechanism is instrumental in guiding interactive communication that results in knowledge being used that benefits the members of a partnership arrangement. The knowledge development process is enhanced by mutual trust and emotional bonds that are established through socialization. Cyclical interaction through socialization and frequent (in)formal meetings facilitates the process of turning explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge and vice versa, and encourages new knowledge to be developed. Socialization also helps to reduce learning myopia and contributes to the innovatory processes that result in customer needs being met.

The paper provides insights into the importance of boundary setting that facilitates cooperative marketing action, which results in a B2B integrated marketing intelligence and planning process.

The purpose of this study is to investigate consumers’ subconscious/emotional responses to brand tarnishment.

Brand tarnishment and the responses of business firms in protecting their brands against economic harm have been controversial topics for many years. Unfortunately, those who have resorted to the courts to protect their brands have met with mixed success, mainly because the methodologies used to demonstrate economic harm have proved controversial. One caveat in the history of court cases is the absence of any investigation related to emotional responses to brand dilution in general, and to brand tarnishment in particular. This is so, despite several calls to investigate this relationship.

It is concluded that the brand tarnishment of fairly well-known brands is largely ineffectual (neutral emotional responses).

The primary contribution of this study is that, for the first time, some light is shed on consumers’ emotional responses to brand tarnishment. Irrespective of the neurophysiological measure used, the results consistently demonstrate that the subconscious responses to brand tarnishment are generally neutral. The results thus do not suggest any likelihood of severe economic harm due to negative emotional responses to brand tarnishment.

The results of this study have important managerial implications for brand managers, and particularly for those responsible for relatively well-established brands. It is clear that at the unconscious level, brand tarnishment is not as harmful as many seem to believe. There is evidence that brands will not be harmed if the “tarnishment” consists of social commentary.

It could also suggest that consumers can differentiate between different forms of tarnishment, and that tarnishment involving social commentary is not frowned upon. This may be because the consumer agrees with the social commentary, or finds it amusing. In short, it seems that consumers may see the tarnishment as mildly amusing, but realize that it is not of a serious nature.

The results seem to suggest that legal action against those who tarnish brands is unnecessary and probably ineffective. Instead, this study proposes more innovative ways to respond to brand tarnishment.

This paper aims to study the impact of individual relationships on tacit knowledge sharing in the company setting of compulsory bond, expressive bond, instrumental bond and self-monitoring by empirical explorations.

The paper raises seven hypotheses that focus on the impact of employees’ relationship with tacit knowledge sharing in knowledge-intensive industries and positions based on relationship theory. Before distributing the formal questionnaires, a pre-research was done in a college by collecting comments and suggestions so as to correct and modify the questionnaires. A four-page questionnaire based on the Likert scale with 45 questions was used for data collection, and 210 valid questionnaires were collected from a research institute, a software company and an educational institute. Finally, SPSS17.0 was used to analyze these data, including reliability analysis, validity analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis, etc.

The findings include: there is a positive correlation between employees’ compulsory bond and the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing; there is a positive correlation between employees’ expressive bond and the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing; there is a negative correlation between employees’ instrumental bond and the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing; the more apt employees are at self-monitoring, the more effectively they will share tacit knowledge; the interaction between compulsory bonds and self-monitoring has a positive and stimulating impact on tacit knowledge sharing; the interaction between expressive bonds and self-monitoring has a positive and stimulating impact on tacit knowledge sharing; and the interaction between instrumental bonds and self-monitoring has a certain impact on tacit knowledge sharing.

However, the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing cannot be measured easily and how to share the tacit knowledge based on employees’ relationships should be further concerned by knowledge industries.

This paper illustrates multiple, in-depth approaches to research on knowledge sharing. It shows why it is important to pay attention to employees’ relationships during the process of tacit knowledge sharing. The author argued some key factors such as compulsory bond, emotional bond and self-monitoring that may have a certain impact on the tacit knowledge sharing. The paper also further discussed the influence on the sharing of tacit knowledge as for the interaction between different relationship types and self-monitoring.

The knowledge is critical to enhance enterprises’ performance, and it will become more useful when the new knowledge is shared with others. However, tacit knowledge cannot be measured easily, and how to share the tacit knowledge based on employees’ relationships should be further concerned by knowledge industries. A series of findings are proposed in this paper.

Integrating the knowledge of different individuals, of which 90 per cent is tacit knowledge, in an organization that engages in producing products and providing service is instrumental to the sustainability and productivity of that organization. This study addressed the factors and dynamics of tacit knowledge sharing that can be used in knowledge management to effectively capture, store and disseminate tacit knowledge across an organization.

Environmental and functional situations of neighbourhoods can play a significant role in maintaining neighbourhoods’ socio-economic activities and residents’ place attachment. This study aims to examine the relationship between architectural identity components (i.e. symbol, ornament and old pattern) and place attachment in Aghazaman neighbourhood as a well-known historic neighbourhood in Sanandaj, Iran.

The study is quantitative in nature and a questionnaire survey was conducted on a sample of 300 respondents to assess the relationships between the architectural identity components and place attachment.

The findings indicate a significant and positive relationship between architectural identity and place attachment, indicating that higher architectural identity is associated with high perceptions of place attachment amongst residents. The results further indicate that the most influencing factor in shaping architectural identity is old pattern, followed by ornaments and symbols.

As place attachment is a strong incentive to maintain social interactions in neighbourhoods and to create a sense of attachment towards the residential environment, attention must be paid to the relationships amongst people, place, meaning and identity.

The architectural elements such as motifs and columns give identity to the image of historic neighbourhoods. The use of architectural identity components can help in decision making of planners and practitioners of urban neighbourhoods. The study was designed to develop a guideline so that future developments in Iran could be monitored to sustain strong neighbourhood attachment.

The advent of the internet and in particular the interactive features of Web 2.0 in recent years have led to an explosion of interest in customer engagement. The opportunities presented by social media to help build close relationships with customers seem to have excited practitioners in a wide variety of industries worldwide. Academic scholarship on customer engagement, however, has lagged practice and its theoretical foundation is relatively underdeveloped and a better understanding of the concept is essential to develop strategies for customer engagement. This paper seeks to address some of these issues.

The paper attempts to enhance understanding of customer engagement by examining practitioner views of customer engagement, linking it to the marketing concept, market orientation, and relationship marketing, modeling the customer engagement cycle, and developing a customer engagement matrix.

The paper develops a model of the customer engagement cycle with connection, interaction, satisfaction, retention, loyalty, advocacy, and engagement as stages in the cycle. It arrays customers in a customer engagement matrix according to the degree of relational exchange and emotional bonds that characterize their relationship with sellers. Four types of relationships emerge: transactional customers, delighted customers, loyal customers, and fans.

The paper is an initial attempt to develop a theoretical framework for customer engagement and further research is required to better understand several aspects of the framework. Future research can also investigate questions stemming from this research, for instance, how different Web 2.0 tools may be used to build customer engagement in consumer and business markets.

Customer engagement turns customers into fans. But for customers to become fans they have to progress through the stages of the customer engagement cycle. In addition to current fans, sellers need a mix of transactional, delighted, and loyal customers who can be turned into fans in the future. A mix of digital and nondigital technologies can be employed to facilitate customers' transition through the stages in the customer engagement cycle.

The paper develops a conceptual model of customer engagement that improves understanding of the concept and provides the foundation for strategies to better satisfy customers using Web 2.0 tools like social media.

Drawing on symbolic interaction theory (SIT), this study aims to identify what makes corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication more favorable to customers in the chain restaurants context. Specifically, this study examines the direct relationships between the interactivity of CSR communication, brand trust and brand sincerity. In addition, the mediating role of brand trust (i.e. separate dimensions of brand reliability and intentions) and the moderated mediating role of self-congruity are explored.

A total of 418 US consumers with past experiences of participating in CSR campaigns organized by chain restaurants on social media were recruited using the online survey method of nonprobability sampling through Amazon Mechanical Turk in December 2021.

The results of this study revealed that the interactivity of CSR communication on social media affects brand sincerity; brand reliability and brand intentions mediate the positive effect of interactivity of CSR communication on brand sincerity; and customer’s self-congruity moderated the positive mediation effect via brand reliability.

Chain restaurant marketers need to understand the important role of interactivity as a key element of CSR communication on social media to help develop brand trust and brand sincerity in chain restaurants.

This study expands on SIT to support the symbolic benefits of interactive CSR communication on social media.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship of consumers’ engagement on social networking sites (SNSs) and their brand attachment behavior in the presence of a mediator, brand communication. Further, this mediation has been studied with presence of emojis as one of the significant moderator.

Following a descriptive research design, an empirical investigation was carried out by approaching 252 respondents from India to collect data through online survey forms as well as physical questionnaires. The research instrument was developed using a five-point Likert-type scale and items for the constructs in study were taken after literature review. The SPSS 22.0, AMOS 24.0 and Process (Prof A. Hayes) and Daniel Soper’s statistical tool called “Interaction” for moderation graph were employed for data examination and hypothesis analysis.

It was found that brand communication mediated the relationship between consumer engagement on SNSs and brand attachment significantly. The availability of emojis for a company during a conversation or in digital ad campaigns on SNSs acts as a mediating moderator and its impact on consumers’ brand attachment behavior is very strong through brand communication.

The study is original in the sense it provides insights into understanding consumer brand attachment behavior on SNSs.

This paper aims to examine the role of brand attachment as a relevant construct in customers’ evaluation after they face a service failure which impacts future consumer behaviors. It mainly answers the research question: does brand attachment cushion or amplify the effect of service failure on customers’ negative emotions?

A 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design was conducted. Data analysis was performed with ANOVA and moderated mediation.

Customer’s feelings toward a brand (brand attachment) that existed before a service failure occurred can regulate customer’s negative emotions especially when consumer attribute service failure to a controllable cause. This process minimizes the effect of service failure in customer’s satisfaction and consequently increase customer behaviors like word of mouth and loyalty intentions.

Adding perceived intentionality as a service failure’s attribution could provide another layer of explanation of customer behavior. Also, an expanded study using a sector characterized by higher cost of change and permanent consumption could provide result’s generalizability.

Brand attachment should be included in the customer service strategy. In a service failure situation, brand attachment becomes part of the “service customer policy” helping customers to regulate their negative emotions.

This study fills the knowledge gap regarding the role of customers’ positive emotions toward brands when a service failure occurs. The current study extends branding literature by differentiating brand attachment role from coping tactics.

This research paper aims to understand how givers characterise and manage their gift giving networks by drawing on attachment theory (AT). This responds to the need to illuminate the givers–receivers’ networks beyond traditional role-based taxonomies and explore their changing dynamics.

A multi-method, qualitative approach was used involving 158 gift experiences captured in online diaries and 27 follow-up interviews.

Results show that givers organise receivers into gifting networks that are grounded in a contextual understanding of their relationships. The identification of direct, surrogate and mediated bonds reflects three different dimensions that inform gift-giving networks of support, care or belongingness rooted in AT. The relative position of gift receivers in this network influences the nature of support, the type of social influences and relationship stability in the network.

This study illustrates the complexity of relationships based on the data collected over two specific periods of time; thus, there might be further types of receivers within a giver’s network that the data did not capture. This limitation was minimised by asking about other possible receivers in interviews.

The findings set a foundation for gift retailers to assist gift givers in finding gifts that match their perceived relations to the receivers by adapting communication messages and offering advice aligned with specific relationship contexts.

This study illuminates gift-giving networks by proposing a taxonomy of gifting networks underpinned by AT that can be applied to study different relationship contexts from the perspective of the giver. This conceptualisation captures different levels of emotional support, social influences and relationship stability, which have an impact on the receivers’ roles within the giver’s network. Importantly, results reveal that the gift receiver is not always the target of gift-giving. The target can be someone whom the giver wants to please or an acquaintance they share with the receiver with whom they wish to reinforce bonds.