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This paper illuminates the distinction between individual and organizational actors in business-to-business markets as well as the coexistence of formal and informal mechanisms of coordination in multinational corporations. The main questions addressed include the following. (1) What factors influence the occurrence of personal contacts of foreign subsidiary managers in industrial multinational corporations? (2) How such personal contacts enable coordination in industrial markets and within multinational firms? The theoretical context of the paper is based on: (1) the interaction approach to industrial markets, (2) the network approach to industrial markets, and (3) the process approach to multinational management. The unit of analysis is the foreign subsidiary manager as the focal actor of a contact network. The paper is empirically focused on Portuguese sales subsidiaries of Finnish multinational corporations, which are managed by either a parent country national (Finnish), a host country national (Portuguese) or a third country national. The paper suggests eight scenarios of individual dependence and uncertainty, which are determined by individual, organizational, and/or market factors. Such scenarios are, in turn, thought to require personal contacts with specific functions. The paper suggests eight interpersonal roles of foreign subsidiary managers, by which the functions of their personal contacts enable inter-firm coordination in industrial markets. In addition, the paper suggests eight propositions on how the functions of their personal contacts enable centralization, formalization, socialization and horizontal communication in multinational corporations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of personal interaction in customer relationship management in the project business. The research question addressed is: How is personal interaction intertwined with the management of customer relationships in the project business?

The authors connect an extensive knowledge of personal interactions in industrial business relationships with research on social interaction in the project business to enrich their understanding of customer relationship management in that business. Exploratory case study is used to empirically examine two firms providing project business solutions: one provides highly-tailored technological solutions to the process industry, and the other provides professional engineering services to that same industry.

The study reveals two specific functions that connect personal interaction with customer relationship management. These two functions explain the importance of personal interaction and disclose the contents of interaction that should be considered in relationship and project management. Furthermore, the authors illustrate how two situational factors influence and are influenced by personal interaction.

The study suggests specific conceptualization of personal interaction as a part of project business management.

Collaboration and preference for teamwork play a fundamental role in strengthening practical completion of team tasks. An organizational culture should facilitate learning systems where knowledge creation occurs through socialization. The purpose of this study is to develop a moderated mediation model, investigating the conditional indirect effect of co-worker support on the relationship between preference for teamwork and communities of practice.

Questionnaire survey was conducted via Google Forms to collect data from 210 employees working in the private and public sector in India. Hayes PROCESS macro models were used for analyzing the mediation of personal interaction and moderation of co-worker support.

This study showed evidence regarding the mediating role of personal interaction on the relationship between preference for teamwork and communities of practice. Co-worker support moderated the relationship between personal interaction and communities of practice. It also moderated the conditional indirect effect.

The results approve the substantial role of preference for teamwork in influencing personal interaction and communities of practice. The mediating role of personal interaction on preference for teamwork and communities of practice can lead to creation and sustenance of communities of practice. Furthermore, the moderating role of co-worker support as a conditional indirect effect shows that social support and exchange can lead to social learning.

Theoretical explanations and analytical approaches provide insights into the relationship between the preference for teamwork and communities of practice through a conditional indirect effect, a one of its kind of a study.

This study aims to investigate how an individual’s perception of team goal priority can be affected by personal interaction, with co-worker support mediating the influence and communities of practice moderating the indirect effect of co-worker support.

Responses from 235 respondents working in private and public manufacturing and service enterprises in India collected through a structured questionnaire were statistically analysed using confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling and PROCESS Macro with random bootstrap resample.

Findings showed a positive relationship between personal interaction and the perception of individuals about team goal priority that was partially mediated by co-worker support. Communities of practice moderated the influence of personal interaction on co-worker support and the conditional indirect effect of personal interaction on the perception of team goal priority.

The results highlight the need for greater employee collaboration towards prioritizing team goals, thus showing a psychologically collectivist attitude. Policies and procedures to create and sustain organization-level communities of practice with employees across departments and hierarchies can also be helpful. Emphasizing the social exchange perspective, the authors recommend improving the overall work climate of any organization.

This paper explains the motivating source of personal interactions and co-worker support for prioritizing team goals in an organization. Establishing the moderating role of communities of practice, the authors have confirmed the role of a social learning system in prioritizing team goals.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research which addressed two purposes. First, to test the fit between, the theoretical model, and the empirical findings from an earlier reported study. Secondly, to test the extrapolative and interrelated nature of a two sets of cultural adjustment constructs designed to enhance the personal wellbeing and intra‐cultural interaction of cross‐border managers when on foreign assignments.

Data were collected from 244 cross‐border managers working for Australian private sector businesses in South‐East Asia in two broad industry groups: manufacturing/industrial, and financial/services. Respondents were asked to complete a questionnaire based on two separate dimensions associated with an individual's adjustment to cross‐border circumstances vis., personal wellbeing and intra‐cultural interaction. This paper evaluates the measurement fit between the identified constructs, by first examining any significant relationship though a structural equation model using LISREL 8; and then through employing path analysis.

Results from the structural equation modeling were significant; and suggest a sound fit between the theoretical model and the empirical findings. The path analysis further supports the multidimensional model. The results provide direction for organisations in addressing cultural adjustment issues to support the personal wellbeing; and the intra‐cultural interaction; of cross‐border managers.

Future research will need to consider the potential for measurement invariance associated with the framework identified in this paper.

The overall results provide useful insights for organisations as to important interventions to assist cross‐managers in becoming more attuned to their new job, business and cultural surroundings and circumstances. In this respect, cross‐border organisations need to include such interventions amongst the “adjustment experiences” for their cross‐border managers in developing personal wellbeing skills and intra‐cultural interaction strategies.

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.

This paper aims to test whether servant leaders lead followers to socially interact more frequently, closely and personally with peers, and if this social interaction links servant leaders with employees’ personal social capital, both in terms of bonding (networks linking employees of a similar kind) and bridging (networks linking agents of different kinds).

Data were collected from 403 employees from 59 large Spanish hotels. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

The results reveal that servant leadership has a positive effect on bonding and bridging, which is mediated by employees’ social interactions with peers inside and outside their groups, respectively.

The findings suggest that hotel managers should adopt servant leadership to facilitate social interactions at work, thus allowing employees to individually gain personal assets that improve the hotel’s social capital resources.

This is the first study to analyze whether servant leadership shapes personal social capital in business settings. Moreover, it is the first to show the mechanisms (social interactions with peers inside and outside their groups) through which managerial servant leadership encourages this valuable personal asset in hotels.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how interaction adjustment influences personal development for expatriates and to examine whether the effect differs between adults that have, and have not, lived abroad during their adolescence.

The authors use survey responses from 424 business expatriates in Asia distinguishing between adult third culture kids (ATCKs) that have lived abroad during their adolescence and adult mono-culture kids (AMCKs) who have not.

The results show that while interaction adjustment generally improves the experience of personal development, this effect is stronger for ATCKs. AMCKs will experience personal development almost independently of their interaction adjustment with host nationals solely due to the novelty of the international experience. For ATCKs, just being in the new country is not enough for them to feel they have developed personally; they need to engage more deeply with the local population to achieve this.

The authors still know very little about ATCKs and about how expatriation during their adulthood develops them personally, given they have already had international experiences at a young age.

This study aims to explore the factors responsible for influencing the service quality (SQ) of department stores in Albaha region, Saudi Arabia. This study also examines the level of influence on SQ.

Primary data was collected from 600 customers out of which 508 questionnaires were included for analysis using retail service quality scale (RSQS). Quota sampling technique was adapted for data collection from different cities of Albaha province. SPSS software was used to analyse the data using multiple linear regression analysis.

Three dimensions have a positive significant impact on SQ (physical aspect, problem-solving and reliability), whereas one dimension (personal interactions) has a negative significant influence and one dimension (policy) is found to be a highly insignificant factor.

Further investigation is required for the negative but significant behaviour of personal interaction and insignificant impact of policy as factors.

This study outlines the dimensions having positive and significant influence of SQ on the department stores.

This study suggests socially and culturally acceptable methods to improve SQ in Albaha.

The research suggests that personal interaction has a negative influence on SQ; this deviation of results from the literature may be due to the cultural variances in KSA which needs to be further investigated, as customers in Albaha are not willing to converse and interact with the seller.

This paper aims to discuss the important and changing role of personal networks for transformation in Russia, and the related challenges for management. Formal institutions supporting the transformation to a market economy have been weak and Russian managers still tend to rely on personal networks. While these networks are important in all economies, they play a different role in full‐fledged market economies than in planned economies.

The paper is conceptual and is based on literature on the nature of markets, the Soviet planned economy, and the transformation process in Russia. A business network approach is used to understand markets and focus on the dynamics of overlapping business and personal networks.

Overlapping between business networks involving non‐Russian networks and between personal and business networks are important drivers of transformation. The challenges for management in Russia are both organizational and strategic, and transformation implies substantial changes in the network structures.

The authors recommend further empirical analysis of the role that the overlapping of business and personal networks plays in transformation, as well as its managerial implications.

This paper shows why firms must build business relationships during transformation that are integrated in nature and in which personal relations support the technical, logistical, financial, and knowledge exchange dimensions.

This paper challenges the dominating view of transformation, which says that market exchange is transactional, impersonal, and competition‐driven. The paper analyzes transformation in Russia as a network overlapping process in which the role of personal relations changes.