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This research seeks to test a model examining the potential links between customer orientation, expertise, and relationship quality at the interpersonal level and the link between relationship quality and positive service outcomes at the firm level, such as loyalty and positive word of mouth.

The study employs a survey methodology to obtain the opinions of 220 business travelers regarding their relationships with their travel agents. The hypothesized relationships were testing using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The research found significant positive relationships between customer orientation and expertise and respondents' perception of relationship quality. It also found significant links between relationship quality at the interpersonal level and positive outcomes at the organizational level. Interpersonal relationship quality enhanced customer satisfaction with the service firm but was also directly linked to loyalty to the firm and positive word‐of‐mouth about the firm.

The study reinforces the importance of examining firm‐level and personal‐level relationships in services. Further, it verifies empirically an important link between customer orientation and relationship quality.

For managers, the study demonstrates the importance of having customer‐oriented employees and the importance that the relationship between customers and employees plays in fostering customer loyalty and positive word‐of‐mouth about the firm.

This research seeks to test a model examining the antecedents and outcomes of interpersonal rapport in a professional service context. The four antecedents examined are familiarity, mutual self‐disclosure, extras, and common grounding, and the outcomes examined are trust, satisfaction, and word‐of‐mouth communication.

The study employs a survey methodology to obtain the opinions of 121 dental patients regarding their relationships with dental professionals. The hypothesized relationships in the model were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The research findings indicated that all four antecedents were positively related to rapport. Rapport was also found to be related to customer satisfaction and word‐of‐mouth communication, but rapport was not found to be related to trust. Post hoc analysis suggests that rapport appears to be related to trust early in relationships, then becomes less important, but re‐emerges as a driver of trust in very mature relationships.

Since rapport appears to be important to generating word‐of‐mouth, managers should foster and reward rapport‐building behavior.

The study empirically verified four antecedents of interpersonal rapport in services, and supports the role of rapport as an important mediating variable in relationship development. The research also supported prior findings on the unique contribution of rapport to positive word‐of‐mouth communication.

Service relationships are often complex, involving multi‐level relationships. Customers can have relationships with the firm and interpersonal relationships with service personnel that vary in terms of strength and intensity. A study was designed to examine the relationship between perceived risk and type of service relationship. It also examined outcomes differences between different types of service relationships. The results suggest that consumers who have strong interpersonal relationships have the highest perceptions of category risk and the lowest perceptions of specific provider risk. The results also indicate that outcomes vary across different types of relationships. Customers who have strong interpersonal or strong person‐to‐firm relationships are less interested in alternatives, but only customers with strong interpersonal relationships are more dedicated, evidenced by greater cooperation, enhancement, identity, and advocacy.

This research aims to examine the link between personality, motives, and the choice of conflict resolution strategy in a service conflict context.

Participants' responses to a service conflict scenario were coded into strategy categories and both personality (the Big Five) and motives were measured with established scales. Differences in personality and motives across the strategies were assessed with ANOVA and the relationship between personality and motives was assessed with multiple‐regression.

While the results did not show a direct relationship between personality and choice of strategy, they did indicate an indirect link through motives. The results also show that consumers used a variety of strategies based on a mix of economic and social motives.

The results show that social motives play an important role in business conflicts. The study also supports a multi‐level perspective of personality, where basic tendencies (the Big Five) impact characteristic adaptations (motives), which are more closely related to behavior.

The results suggest that consumer behavior in dealing with conflict can be complex and that service provider cannot rely on “one best way” strategies for dealing with customers. Managers should also be sensitive to the importance that social motives play in conflict resolution, particularly the importance consumers place on fairness.

The paper illustrates how social motives play an important role in business conflicts.

This study examines how various characteristics of the discount retail environment and the overall attitude towards a discount retail store, considered to be an abstract and global image component, influence consumers’ satisfaction and how consumers’ satisfaction, in turn, affects store loyalty. The data, collected from a sample of 517 discount retail customers in Daegu, Korea, indicate that: (1) forming the overall attitude is more closely related to in‐store services: atmosphere, employee service, after sales service and merchandising, (2) store satisfaction is formed through perceived store atmosphere and value, (3) the overall attitude has strong influence on satisfaction and loyalty and its impact is much stronger on loyalty than on satisfaction, (4) store loyalty is directly affected by most significantly location, merchandising and after sale service in order, (5) satisfaction is not related to customers’ committed store revisiting behavior. The applications in management and implications for future research are discussed.

Problems with corks are a major issue in the wine industry. The key problem has been the lack of consumer acceptance of alternative closures. This research used an interview and survey approach with 200 wine shoppers in Australia to determine: 1) consumer perceptions of cork problems; 2) acceptance of a synthetic cork with no information provided; and 3) acceptance of a synthetic cork after providing information concerning cork problems and solutions. Consumers who purchased more than one bottle of wine per week had the most problems with corks, but 75% of all consumers interviewed had experienced some problems in the last 12 months. The provision of information was key in gaining consumer acceptance of the synthetic corks. Measures of which attributes of the synthetic corks attracted consumers is also provided along with recommendations for introducing these closures into the marketplace.

To provide the strategic model of approach which helps enterprise executives to solve the managerial problems of planning, implementation and operation about information security in business convergence environments.

A risk analysis method and baseline controls of BS7799 were used to generate security patterns of business convergence. With the analysis of existing enterprise architecture (EA) methods, the framework of the enterprise security architecture was designed.

The adaptive framework, including the security patterns with quantitative factors, enterprise security architecture with 18 dimensions, and reference models in business convergence environments, is provided.

Information assets and baseline controls should be subdivided to provide more detailed risk factors and weight factors of each business convergence strategy. Case studies should be performed continuously to consolidate contents of best practices.

With the enterprise security architecture provided in this paper, an enterprise that tries to create a value‐added business model using convergence model can adapt itself to mitigate security risks and reduce potential losses.

This paper outlined the business risks in convergence environments with risk analysis and baseline controls. It is aguably the first attempt to adapt the EA approach for enterprise executives to solve the security problems of business convergence.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

This paper seeks to identify empirically the factors underlying the decision to adopt online banking in Poland.

The sample used in this study is based on 3,519 interactive questionnaires completed by Polish internet users. The dichotomous decision of whether to adopt internet banking services was linked, via Binomial Logistic Regression, to numerous explanatory variables.

Generally, the behaviour of Polish internet users and that of consumers in more developed countries exhibit similar traits. One of the dominant relationships that has been observed in our study is the link between the decision to open an online account and the perceived level of security of internet transactions. Experience with the medium of internet and certain demographic variables also proved to be robust predictors of the adoption status. Moreover, this inquiry documents that advertising appears to be efficacious and that online banking interacts with consumption of other products offered by banks. These findings imply that financial institutions can encourage customers to use this cost‐effective distribution channel through carefully‐planned actions.

The results presented in this paper can be of assistance to banks that either operate in Poland or intend to design a pan‐European strategy. Useful insights are also provided with regard to market segmentation, security and strategies fostering the acceptance of online banking.

The analysis is based on a large sample and broadens our understanding of the attitudes towards innovative financial products by considering factors rarely discussed in prior literature.

Many have applied the concept of congruence or fit in the context of person‐organization, person‐environment and person‐person relationships and interactions. However, despite the significance of customer‐employee interactions and relations in a services context, no research has investigated the effects of congruence between a customer's self‐concept and employee‐image on important relational outcomes such as relationship satisfaction, loyalty to employees and satisfaction towards service provider. The paper aims to fill this gap in the literature and to investigate the effects of self‐employee congruence on customer satisfaction via the mediating effects of personal interaction, relationship satisfaction and loyalty to employees. The paper also seeks to investigate the links among personal interaction, relationship satisfaction and loyalty towards employees.

The paper uses a causal modelling approach and proposes a conceptual model after an extensive review of the literature related to consumer behaviour, organizational behaviour, relationship marketing and services marketing. The paper is based on a sample of 203 customers of bank users in Nigeria who completed a self‐administered questionnaire. The paper uses confirmatory factor analysis and SEM to analyse and confirm the conceptual model proposed in this research.

The paper demonstrates that self‐employee congruence is an important antecedent of personal interaction, relationship satisfaction and loyalty to employees each of which is in turn positively linked to customer satisfaction towards the service provider.

The paper discusses implications for service marketers and for retail banking sector and highlights the significance of self‐employee congruence for service design and delivery, advertising strategies and suggests future research directions.

The paper is first of its kind to discuss the effects of perceived similarities between customers and employees on some important relational constructs such as personal interaction, relationship satisfaction, loyalty towards employees and towards customer satisfaction.