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The purpose of this paper is to examine pre and post outcome measures following a course of Compassionate Mind Training (CMT). Participants were students enrolled on a Post Graduate Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy (CBP). The aim of the research was to explore whether CMT would increase self-compassion, compassion for others, dispositional empathy and reduce self-critical judgement.

In total, 21 participants who had enrolled on the CBP programme took part in the study. Data were collected using the self-compassion scale, interpersonal reactivity index, and the compassion for others scale.

Results reveal an overall statistically significant increase in self-compassion scores and statistically significant reduction in self-critical judgement scores post training. There was no statistically significant difference post training on the interpersonal reactivity index or the compassion for others scale.

CMT training may help students develop healthy coping strategies, which they can use to balance their affect regulation systems when faced with organisational, placement, client, academic, personal and supervision demands. Further research and longitudinal studies, using larger sample sizes are needed to explore if cultivating compassion whilst on psychotherapy training helps students build resilience and provide a barrier against empathic distress fatigue, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout.

Incorporating CMT into a CBP programme may bring changes in student levels of self-compassion and self-critical judgement.

This inaugural study examines whether incorporating CMT into a CBP programme impacts on students levels of compassion, dispositional empathy and self-critical judgement. The findings from this preliminary study suggest the potential benefits of training students in compassion focused practices.

The paper uses a questionnaire and a theoretical model of bank‐customer interaction preferences as the basis for examining the perceptions of retail bank customers regarding the use of remote delivery channels and the extent to which they still value traditional branch‐based face‐to‐face interactions. The empirical evidence suggests that despite the increase in remote banking, retail bank customers still place significantly greater emphasis on face‐to‐face contact. The implications of this finding are that if banks want to encourage widespread customer adoption of remote banking they must better understand customer attitudes towards alternative delivery channels and use this information to educate their customers on the tangible service benefits which emanate from remote delivery.

The Internet presents many possibilities by which small firms can better identify and exploit marketing opportunities. A prerequisite to successful on‐line firm‐customer interactions is the existence of a trusting bond between the network players. This research study examines the extent to which key informants perceive on‐line trust‐mark branding as important in this trust generation process. Results from in‐depth interviews with government support agency staff and other key informants are reported. Findings indicate a general perception among respondents that the generation of on‐line trust is not an area of great importance and the use of trust‐mark brands is a longer‐term consideration.

While technology continues to make a dramatic and profound impact in service industries and radically shapes how services are delivered relatively little is understood about the impact of advancing technology on customers; their expectations, perceptions and behaviours. As banking enters an increasingly digitised world this study reports on the views of 667 e-banking customers with respect to the perceived potential of social media to add value in retail banking relationships. The purpose of this paper is to propose that in order to realise this opportunity requires the case bank to embrace the second-order level changes required within socio-technical theory (STT) in order that such value can be co-created between the relational parties.

Using the lens of STT to interpret the findings drawn from the case bank’s e-banking customer base (n=5,500), it is argued that social media has the potential to fundamentally change customer-bank relationships and to add value to the way in which the parties interact with each other into the future. A survey methodology was adopted.

The findings presented indicate a wide spectrum of customers actively using transactional e-banking solutions in the case bank. The findings showed that those in the 15-30 age group saw “real-time/up-to-date information” as the main gain of their bank being on Facebook while their older colleagues in the 31-60 age group had a desire for different returns (“competitions, events”). That the analysis showed that age was the only significant determinant of Facebook appropriateness for the case bank, and in the context of the age-related preferences outlined above, the issue of segmentation is strongly highlighted.

This study contributes to the academic domain through a rare application of STT in a service context, offers implications for practice and highlights important areas for future research, inter alia; the role for new media in banking relationships, the impacts of new media on bank staff roles, where value now accrues in bank-customer communication, where social media fits in the promotional mix and relational strategies of banks and what are the issues emerging at the social-technical interface between both customers and staff and new technology and media.

This article explores the competencies needed by the entrepreneurial small firm (ESF) owner/manager for the effective use of the Internet in managing customer relationships. The research reviews a theoretical model of appropriate competencies and presents the findings of an empirical research programme designed to establish the value of this model. The article goes on to propose a strategy for developing competencies in the use of the Internet.

Having finally embraced the concept of marketing, banks enter the new millennium in a increasingly competitive and fragmented marketplace, consisting of financially literate consumers and direct low cost competition from recognised high street brand names. As customers increasingly interact with banks through remote technological channels (e.g. phone, Internet, etc.) the implications for bank‐customer relationships are important. This paper, accordingly, reports on an international research study which explored the perceptions of senior bankers in the UK, Sweden and the USA with regard to the use of the Internet as a relationship marketing tool. There was unanimous agreement that the Internet had a key role to play in relationship management but there was far less agreement about the rates of customer adoption and the extent to which this could or should be influenced by bank strategies.

In light of the current global economic turmoil and ongoing recessionary pressures, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between banks and those seeking to launch and develop entrepreneurial small businesses. The authors aim to explore how the quality of that relationship can impact the level of financial support for start‐up and early‐stage business ventures.

Currently economic confidence is at a generational low, the financial services sector is in turmoil and relationships and understanding between the banks and the small business sector have become increasingly toxic. On top of this, the nature of relationships between banks and entrepreneurial new venturers are seen to be persistently determined by the interests of banks. This research seeks to provide new insights to how these relationships have and might yet evolve. In light of the exploratory nature of the research, a qualitative research methodology was considered appropriate.

A number of issues were identified that indicate that the relationship between small firms and their banks appears to be very damaged. Of concern to banks was the general antipathy with which they were viewed by the entrepreneurs in the study where the pervasive view was one of general hopelessness and lack of trust and confidence. Participants viewed banks as insensitive and lacking in any empathy around their circumstances as small firms in stressful economic conditions.

Given the qualitative nature of this research, based on a small sample of participants it is not intended to be generalizable to a wider population. A number of valuable insights emerge from the research around management challenges that exist at the micro relationship level between banker and entrepreneur. The need for meaningful relationship management by banks with small business clients based on a longer‐term perspective, empathetic and specialist knowledge and informed advice emerged as issues within this research, as did the relationship benefit of having greater stability in local branch staffing levels.

The research suggests that there are consequences where localised decision making has been largely removed from UK banks' retail branch networks and managers appeared to be disempowered from making local judgments on the financing needs of small firm customers. However, such an environment can create an opportunity for bank managers to choose to engage with small firm clients in a more personal way. Limiting this potential however is the recognition that such an engagement would demand significant disaggregation in banking services, with all the targeted resource implications that would imply.

Recent studies have highlighted the need for further research into how banks might provide better support to those within the small firm sector in times of tight credit, particularly given the current turmoil in the world's economy and the on‐going impact of the ensuing recession. This research provides a number of new insights to the challenges facing local bank managers in developing and maintaining positive relationships between themselves and entrepreneurial new venturers.

Technological advances have made a significant impact on the banking sector in recent years, with a key development being the introduction of technological and remote channels of interaction. While some research has been undertaken to establish the level of acceptance by customers of these channels, most of this research has examined retail banking customers’ attitudes to, and adoption of, remote interaction channels. This paper reports the findings of a study which has investigated channel preferences amongst corporate customers of a leading retail and corporate bank in the UK. Specifically, it seeks to differentiate between smaller business customers and larger customers. The key findings are that all customers prefer personalised interaction and that smaller customers, who are generally less profitable for banks than large clients, show relatively less willingness to embrace technological means of communication and to insist on personal interaction with their bank.

During the last 20 years or so the changing environment in which universities operate has meant that commensurately more emphasis has been placed on marketing principles. In light of this emphasis, it is perhaps a little surprising that relatively little attention has been directed towards the processes by which universities develop their products, and the extent to which module and programme development processes are market informed and customer oriented. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper adopts a case study methodology to examine early stage new product development (NPD) processes in UK higher education (HE) institutions.

The findings reveal some potential shortcomings in the early stages or fuzzy front end of NPD in universities. In particular, there appears to be a lack of staff incentives, financial or otherwise, to innovate and introduce new ideas relating to module and programme development.

The issue of sample bias needs to be factored into however, given that these six institutions proactively engaged with this process possibly indicating a recognition or impetus on their part to learn how new programme development could be better understood. That the vast majority of the sample were teaching dominant institutions is also an interesting consideration as this will have an impact on the imperative to improve new programme development processes in an increasingly competitive HE environment.

The paper discussed some of the implications for the corporate governance structures of universities and also emphasized the need for cultural change. In this respect, one of the biggest challenges facing universities is to break down or erode the barriers, which exist between academic and non-academic staff and create a “level playing field”.

As the authors enter an era of higher student fees, the question of value for money combined with an associated increase in the expectations of university stakeholders, will have potentially quite marked implications for universities. Accordingly, the future viability of some degree programmes and, perhaps, even the long-term survival of some institutions may be dependent on the adoption of the sort of changes identified in this paper.

While the concept of relationship marketing has attracted increasing academic and practitioner attention in recent years, issues relating to the practical and context specific implementation of relationship marketing cultures have been less well developed. Indeed, recent literature points up the many difficulties associated with the implementation of relationship marketing. This paper addresses a number of key issues associated with the implementation of a relationship culture in the context of a leading and long established retail banking institution. Specifically, the form which such a culture should take is discussed, together with a critical review of how successful the case bank has been in its establishment. In light of this analysis a conceptual model is proposed for the development of relationship cultures within the banking industry.