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This study aims to investigate the impact of three types of online customer-to-customer interaction qualities on customers' participation intention through customer–firm affection in online mass service contexts to address the influence of several types of intercustomer interactions.

The data were amassed using retrospective experience sampling. The hypothesized relationships were examined utilizing structural equation modeling.

The results demonstrate that the perceived quality of the friend-interaction (e.g. [non-]verbal online interaction with friends), neighboring customer-interaction (e.g. [non-]verbal online interaction with stranger users) and the audience-interaction (crowding) has a significant impact upon customer participation intention, mediated by customer–firm affection.

This research was performed in the situation of online mass services (e.g. massively multiplayer online role-playing games). Future studies could extend the findings by conducting further studies across various types of services and by comparing results across different categories of mass services (e.g. hedonic vs utilitarian).

Online mass service marketers should focus on facilitating all three types of online customer-to-customer interactions (i.e. friend-, neighboring customer-, and audience-interaction). For example, online game developers may need to require users to communicate and collaborate with not only friends but also stranger users to progress and succeed in online multiplayer games.

The current study differs from prior research by addressing the influences of not only online intercustomer interaction qualities but also customer–firm affection on customer participation intention.

The focus on ongoing customer relationships is the most distinctive aspect of relationship marketing. To date we still have a poor understanding of the role played by interpersonal‐related factors in gaining and developing customer loyalty. This paper explores the impact of interpersonal relationships (both with a firm employee and with another customer) on customer satisfaction and loyalty towards the firm. Based on a review of different streams of research, the paper develops and empirically tests an original multi‐level and multi‐subject model. The findings show that customer‐to‐employee and customer‐to‐customer relationships contribute differently to the development of customer loyalty. Finally, the paper discusses managerial implications and directions for future research.

This paper attempts to investigate the simultaneous effects of dedication and constraint factors on business-to-business (B2B) customer loyalty in the context of transforming the mobile telecommunication industry. Maintaining a successful inter-organizational relationship with the key players becomes increasingly critical to the performance and competitiveness of the mobile network operator (MNO) in the mobile telecommunication industry.

A dual customer loyalty model which reflected both dedication-based and constraint-based mechanisms is developed and empirically tested against data collected from 129 content providers (CPs) which currently have business relationships with China Mobile.

The structural equation modeling partial least squares analysis indicates that dedication-based (e.g. customer satisfaction, trust in MNO and MNO’s relationship-specific investments) and constraint-based (e.g. switching costs, dependence on MNO and CP’s asset specificity) mechanisms simultaneously, yet differentially, influence CP’s loyalty toward the MNO.

To obtain CP’s loyalty, MNOs should consider both the dedication and constraint factors. In particular, they need to focus more on the constraint-based mechanism, as it exerts stronger influences on CP’s loyalty than the dedication-based mechanism.

This research advances our theoretical understanding of the dual nature of customer loyalty behavior in the B2B context and offers practical implications for MNOs to leverage these two contrasting causal drivers.

This paper aims to examine how trust and communication at the personal level relationships conform to trust and communication at the organizational level relationships and which role do the two different level relationships play in influencing firms’ commitment, performance and propensity to stay in long-term relationships.

A face-to-face questionnaire study was conducted using a sample of 209 in Mainland China companies, which were surveyed in nine exhibitions. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results support the bottom-up effect of interpersonal trust and communication on inter-organizational trust and communication. Interorganizational trust has a more powerful total effect on firm commitment. Interpersonal communication has a more powerful total effect on inter-organizational trust and communication and firms’ operational performance. Interpersonal communication, inter-organizational trust and communication have comparably high impacts on firms’ propensity to stay in long-term relationships.

This paper selects Mainland China as the research context and targets a single boundary spanner in each respondent firm to evaluate both the interpersonal and inter-organizational relationships. A cross-sectional approach was used.

This paper suggests that business people should pay attention to the role of human factors in a firm’s relational exchanges with SC partners and effectively use the positive effects of these factors to create relationship-building benefits.

This paper conducts cross-level research, which has been called for in recently published inter-organizational literature. It develops and provides empirical evidence for a bottom-up model from interpersonal relationships to inter-organizational relationships and identifies their impacts on organizational outcomes simultaneously.

Based on a dyadic perspective, the purpose of this paper is to include the contributions of employee and customer in a service process and to examine the underlying mechanism of customer organization socialization on service performance.

The authors used a unique survey data pertaining to the service industry. The authors collected their data from multiple sources (customers, front-line employees and these employees' managers) in the divisions of a large service organization – Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China. The authors adopted hierarchical regression moderated path analysis approach to examine our moderated mediation model.

The authors find that both the quality of customer service and the quality of employee service play as moderators in the relationship between customer organization socialization and service performance. And quality of customer service moderates the relationship between customer organization socialization and quality of employee service.

The literature has focused primarily on service performance improvement based on the dyadic perspective of customer and employee. The research develops a moderated mediation model and contributes to the literature by empirically examining customer organization socialization.

This study aims to examine members’ perceptions of interactivity in brand communities on social networking sites in the Super Basketball League (SBL) context in Taiwan.

The proposed model was empirically evaluated using survey data collected from 332 followers of the SBL teams’ Facebook pages on their perceptions of brand communities. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships in the research model.

The results suggest significant relationships between perceived interactivity and community benefits, including special treatment, social influence, sense of membership and the notion that community satisfaction has a strong and positive effect on brand loyalty. Both social influence and a sense of membership positively affect community satisfaction. However, special treatment negatively affects community satisfaction. Perceived interactivity positively affects a sense of membership and social influence, which, in turn, positively affect community satisfaction.

This study examines the effects of members’ perceived interactivity and community benefits. The results significantly advance the understanding of the antecedents of members’ loyalty to specific brands. The study offers insights into practical ways of improving community satisfaction and brand loyalty by running brand communities on social networking sites. The findings also augment the theory of brand management.

The purpose of this study is to examine the transformation expectations and well-being of lenders as a consequence of participation in peer-to-peer (p2p) lending in India. The study tested the influence of transformation expectations on well-being, social connectedness on transformation expectations and the influence of customer participation on financial empowerment of borrowers.

A cross-sectional survey research design was adopted to collect data from 434 customers in India. Structural equation modelling procedure was performed to test the hypothesized relationships.

The findings show that relational transformation expectations leads to well-being, while social connectedness influences self and relational transformation expectations. Further, customer participation has a positive influence on financial empowerment of borrowers.

Managers may use these findings to create suitable marketing strategies for increasing customer participation in p2p lending.

Previous studies on transformative services have shown that well-being can be achieved through participation in services that are transformative by design, while this study has established that lender participation in peer-to-peer lending can result in relational transformation expectations and lead to well-being. Also, the current study has shown that social connectedness is an antecedent of transformation expectations.

To empirically examine the development and influence that customer‐to‐customer interactions (CCI) have in a high personal contact setting.

Using responses from patrons of different hair salons, the role that salon atmospherics had on the formation of CCI was assessed. Then, the relative influence of CCI on satisfaction with the firm, loyalty to the firm and firm word‐of‐mouth, in a model of service outcomes, was examined.

Results indicate that atmospherics do influence CCI, which in turn is a strong predictor of loyalty to the firm and positive word‐of‐mouth.

Care should be taken when generalizing these findings to other service settings. It should be noted that all female respondents were generally more educated and had higher incomes than the general population.

This study suggests that positive perceptions of atmospherics will lead to positive CCI effects. If managers determine that they would like to enhance the quality of CCI, they should incorporate changes to the physical settings that enhance the type of interactions they desire.

In terms of how to assess CCI, the authors provide a simple four‐item scale which can be used by managers to assess the degree in which their customers interact and the effect that the interaction has on their experience.

This study aims to develop a comprehensive, theoretically grounded framework of customer-to-customer interaction (CCI) management, by revisiting three older services marketing models: the servuction model, the services marketing triangle and the services marketing pyramid.

Noting the lack of theoretical frameworks of CCI management, this study adopts a problematization approach to identify foundational services marketing models, question their underlying assumptions, develop an alternative conceptual framework and evaluate its adequacy for CCI management, on the basis of a systematic literature review and content analyses.

By revisiting the assumptions underlying three relevant models in the light of the present-day, technology-infused service environment, this study proposes a four-triangle CCI management framework encompassing four specific modes of CCI management: managerial decisions by the firm; frontline employees; the design of the physical environment; and technology. Furthermore, this study emphasizes the triadic relationships involving the focal customer, other customers and the four modes of CCI management. Building on these findings, this study concludes with an extensive research agenda.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study represents the first scholarly effort in services marketing literature to provide a comprehensive, theoretically grounded framework of CCI management. With its basis in foundational models, the new framework is well-suited to address future challenges to service marketplaces too.