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The purpose of this paper is to explore the major factors that impact the quality commitment of employees in organizations.

The paper uses a cross‐sectional design and the propositions are validated through two sample surveys conducted in two separate organizations in Turkey.

The study presents four independent variables as the major factors affecting quality commitment of employees, viz. the leadership commitment towards quality; the quality orientation of the organization; team effectiveness and effectiveness of quality‐related communication. The four hypotheses are found to be valid.

The paper attempts to contribute towards the literature on quality commitment of employees. So far, studies on quality commitment have been quite limited and hence this effectively fills a gap in the literature. Examination of data collected from a government ministry and a manufacturing company reveals some significant findings, which contributes to quality management literature.

The main purpose of this paper is to highlight the significance of automated service factors, customer trust, and delight in customer commitment within the United Arab Emirates (UAE) banking context.

The relative importance of automated service factors to customer delight, trust, and commitment was examined. The paper then proposed a conceptual model of the relationship between automated factors, customer delight, trust, and commitment within the UAE banking context. A survey was designed and data collected through the mall intercept method. AMOS 6 was used to test the hypothesized relationships.

Most of the automated factors have no direct relationship with customer commitment, but an indirect one through customer trust and delight. Automated factors have a direct and positive influence on customer delight, which in turn has a direct influence on both customer trust and customer commitment. Customer trust is also related positively and directly to customer commitment.

This research has been applied to the financial institutions in the UAE. Further testing of the proposed conceptual model across different industries and countries is needed to determine the generalizability and consistency of this study's findings.

The proposed model of commitment prediction has the potential to help UAE bank managers to strengthen the customer‐bank relationship and, ultimately, to enhance customer delight, trust, and commitment ratios especially in the light of the credit crunch that most banks in the UAE are facing.

This paper is a significant trial in showing the importance of automated service quality in gaining customers' commitment within the UAE retail banking context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine antecedents of employee quality commitment at two Korean auto firms.

Data were collected from 644 employees at two auto plants; 331 at the high lean plant and 313 at the low lean plant. Hierarchical regression analyses were employed.

This research showed that intrinsic rewards factors were significant determinants of quality commitment in the high lean plant sample, whereas those relating to extrinsic rewards were major antecedents in the low lean plant sample. The study finds that the tested antecedents to quality commitment differ in relative importance at different stages of lean production implementation.

Since data were collected from 644 employees at two Korean firms, the results may need to be modified before being generalized for other national contexts.

The results suggest that the relative importance of the antecedent variables of employee quality commitment changes as lean implementation progresses, shifting in the general direction of rewards intrinsic to the job itself. Managers sensitive to the dynamic nature of the antecedents to employee quality commitment will be the most effective in fostering it.

This paper examines antecedents of employee quality commitment at two Korean auto plants, and offers practical implications for managers starting for the effective fostering of employee quality commitment in terms of different stages of lean production implementation.

Examines the associations between ten integrated quality management constructs and the resulting product quality. Analyzes responses from plant managers of 449 auto‐parts firms using stepwise regression. Notes three primary predictors (customer focus, empowerment, and supplier quality management) explaining 26 per cent of variation in product quality. Examines the role of top management commitment in TQM implementation by splitting the sample into firms with high and low top management commitment based on the mean score on this construct. Concludes, first, that firms with high top management commitment produce high quality products despite variations in individual constructs, and, second, that in firms with low top management commitment, four other constructs, i.e. customer focus, supplier quality management, empowerment, and internal quality information usage are primary predictors of product quality.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to model the antecedents and consequences of quality commitment among employees in a service organization.

The conceptual model based on extant literature on quality commitment is validated through a study among employees in a consultancy organization in Turkey involved in servicing SMEs.

The conceptual model finds reasonable support through the study. All the proposed antecedents and consequences are found to be linked positively as per the propositions.

The study is based on a single organization, which could impact the generalizability of the results. Further two of the constructs are measured using two item scales, affecting the scale validity.

This paper introduces a model of quality commitment, which focuses on the outcomes of quality commitment, and validates it in the context of a service organization.

The commitment of employees to the goals of the organisation is a critical component of any total quality programme. This study presents a conceptualisation of employee commitment to quality together with a new 12‐item scale for its measurement. Data from employees performing a variety of jobs within two manufacturing organisations (n=1,120) showed a unidimensional measure with good psychometric properties, and a number of antecedents of quality commitment suggested by existing literature were examined. Multiple regression analysis showed that quality commitment is higher for older workers and for women, and is also related to a number of work design characteristics. A case study is also reported of the implementation of self‐managing teams within one of the organisations (n=37). Data from three measurement occasions showed marked changes in work design characteristics, and this was associated with a significant increase in quality commitment. A conceptual model is presented showing how quality commitment plays a key role in achieving success in organisational strategic change initiatives.

Limited attention has been given to the effects of normative commitment (NC) in a marketing relationship. This paper investigates the effects of service quality and normative commitment on customer retention in a consumer-retailer relationship.

Two distinct studies; a longitudinal experiment and a SEM model were conducted to tease out the normative commitment-service quality interaction on customer switching intentions in services.

Both studies supported the existence of a significant normative commitment-service quality interaction on switching, in addition to the main effects of both variables.

The longitudinal experiment has the limitation of being a simple test of theory in a controlled setting. Study II validates this theory in a real-world retail services setting, but there are questions about the extent to which the relationship may hold in other service sectors. The results indicate that the effect of service quality on customer loyalty is moderated by normative commitment. This may also allow us to think about customer commitment in a new way in that it could be a construct rooted in attitude confidence rather than attitude.

The findings allow practitioners to recognize that the development of obligation-based normative commitment can give them a basis for successful competition against other firms, even those that may outperform them on other salient attributes, including basic service quality.

This is one of a very small number of studies in the discipline that have examined the effects of normative commitment and the first that has demonstrated that normative commitment moderates the service quality-service customer retention relationship. This opens the door for the possibility that other forms of commitment may moderate the relationship between service quality and customer retention.

While service quality, trust and commitment are frequently cited as critical to achieving important firm outcomes, the role of service differentiation in this framework is largely unknown. Yet, differentiation is important because a firm's distinctiveness is linked to client‐perceived value, competitive advantage, and a target market focus. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the role of service differentiation in business‐to‐business relationships.

Hypotheses were tested using a sample of business clients from a large European financial services firm. The senior primary contact in each client firm was contacted by phone/e‐mail to arrange for completion of the survey. Using the survey instrument, respondents provided information on their relationship with the provider organization.

Results indicated that service quality had an impact on trust, differentiation and relationship outcomes. Trust was found to drive service differentiation. Differentiation, in turn, drove commitment which ultimately had an impact on both satisfaction and word‐of‐mouth. Importantly, it was found that service differentiation is a full mediator of the impact that service quality and trust have on client commitment towards the firm.

The findings clearly show the importance of service differentiation in achieving high levels of relationship commitment and ultimately satisfaction and positive word‐of‐mouth. As the role of differentiation in business‐to‐business relationships has received limited research focus, this paper offers managers new insights into relationship development. Importantly, differentiation is a managerially controlled variable that firms can use to influence relationship outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to understand how employees of an organization build and maintain successful business relationships by analyzing major antecedents of relationship quality and relationship commitment.

In this study, the authors develop a conceptual framework and formulate hypotheses regarding the relationships between demographic homophily, interpersonal communication, trust and dependent variables of perceived relationship quality and relationship commitment. This paper tests hypotheses presented in this study with the help of a structural equation model, based on a data sample from South Korea.

Unlike common thinking, demographic homophily does not directly increase the perceived relationship quality. The authors find a significant direct effect of interpersonal communication on relationship commitment but no effect of commitment on perceived relationship quality. Both seem to play independent roles but are positively influenced through the emergence of trust.

By applying demographic homophily and interpersonal communication as antecedents and trust as mediator and main driver, the authors research effects on perceived intra-organizational relationship commitment and perceived relationship quality. In detail, the authors confirm the hypothesized centrality of trust in intra-organizational relationships between demographic homophily, interpersonal communication and dependent variables of perceived relationship quality and relationship commitment. Nevertheless, the authors surprisingly find neither significant evidence that demographic homophily increases the perceived quality of a relationship, nor does it lead to higher communication intensity directly, even in an environment (i.e. Korea), where it would be expected.

Based on the findings of this study, there are several practical implications. Understanding the interpersonal relationship characteristics in an intra-organizational setting enables managers to optimize organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Intra-organizational relationships between employees’ are highly dependent on mutual trust as an indicator for relationship quality and relationship commitment. Organizations can also benefit from the understanding of the mechanisms of demographic homophily and interpersonal communication for the establishment of interpersonal trust as well.

Research about the effect of demographic homophily and interpersonal communication and the central role of trust in an intra-organizational approach to business relationships on perceived relationship quality and relationship commitment is scarce. The mutual testing of the effects and interaction of established constructs like demographic homophily, interpersonal communication and trust on perceived relationship quality and commitment constitutes the main contribution of this study to the literature on management and business relationships. The insights of this study about interpersonal bonding help companies to establish long-term business relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how firms can influence customer loyalty through customer commitment by leveraging two constructs of service quality: service assurance and service reliability.

The analyses are based on 138 responses retrieved from experienced users of mobile phone services in one of the big cities in the South-eastern part of Nigeria through a survey questionnaire. The validity and reliability of the measurement model as well as the proposed hypotheses were examined through the partial least squares structural equation modelling procedure.

Service reliability is a direct predictor of customer loyalty while service assurance is not. Affective commitment has a direct positive effect on customer loyalty and partially mediates the relationship between service reliability and customer loyalty. In contrast, the mediating effects of affective and continuance commitment on the relationship between service assurance and customer loyalty were positive but insignificant. Finally, affective commitment mediates the effect of continuance commitment on customer loyalty.

The mediating role of the individual components of commitment in the links between the individual dimensions of service quality and customer loyalty is largely untested in the literature. This line of inquiry can form the basis for future research proposals. Additionally, the outcomes that emerged from this research must be interpreted with caution due to the size of the sample on which analyses were based. Future research should employ larger samples.

Services organisations especially telecommunication firms may benefit from customer loyalty by pursuing a combined strategy of increasing service assurance, service reliability, affective commitment and continuance commitment both independently and in tandem.

As far as could be established, this paper is the first to explore the mediating effects of affective and continuance commitment on the links between service quality dimensions and customer loyalty.