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Customer interactions with sellers change as social interactions in society change. The old dichotomy between transaction and relation exchange may no longer be valid as customers form relationships with sellers in new ways. It is against this background that the authors study how customers’ subjective perception of relational exchange appears in objectively defined transactional and relational exchange forms. The authors study one bank’s customers, and, based on objective bank records, the authors identify segments that behave as transactional and relational customers. The authors also identify a group of customers who are in between transactional and relational, and the authors call these interimistic relational, since they interact repeatedly with the bank in a short period of time. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors study how subjective attributes of relational exchange differ in objectively defined transactional, interimistic, and relational customer groups. The authors use a large data set, consisting of a combination of survey and objective bank records for 90,528 bank customers.

Findings are that the old dichotomy between transaction and relation is no longer valid, since customers’ exchange behavior and perception of exchange do not match up when it comes to the transaction-relation dichotomy. The authors find empirical evidence for that the subjective relational attributes can be observed in objectively defined relational, interimistic, and transactional customer groups. Overall, subjective relational attributes are strongest in the objective relational group; they are weaker in the interimistic group. Relational attributes are weakest, but still present, in the transactional group.

The findings presented here suggest strong support for relationship marketing practice, since even customers who behave transactionally perceive that they have an element of relationship with the seller. The authors find that customers may behave in a relational, interimistic, and transactional way, but that they perceive themselves as more or less relational. The practical implication is that customer analysis should focus on exchange forms, and that it is essential to analyze how exchange changes, and how multiple exchange forms may be combined in customer behavior and perception.

The social implications of this paper are that marketers should consider the exchange between customer and financial service supplier as more or less of a relationship, and more or less of a service. Financial service firm strategies and regulation of financial services should acknowledge that no financial service transaction is independent of the relationship between the financial service provider and the customer. It may seem so objectively, but subjectively, it is not.

The authors present a unique comparison of objective and subjective customer exchange. There are two contributions that come from this research. The first is that customers perceive themselves as partially relational, even though they behave transactionally. The other contribution is that the authors identified interimistic relational exchange (IRE) as an exchange form in between relational and transactional. IRE can potentially be very important for market research and practice, as it captures modern market behavior. In today’s world, consumers form their perceptions in a multitude of ways, and may therefore have relational attitudes and transactional behaviors. More research is needed into how consumer perceptions and behaviors relate to each other, and how it impacts consumer purchase of financial services.

The purpose of this paper is to examine quality satisfaction between transactional and relational customers in e-commerce, and it also explores the moderating effect of perceived control and perceived enjoyment on quality satisfaction.

Multivariate analysis of variance and two-way ANOVA were conducted to test the study hypotheses. The samples include 470 university students in the northeastern USA to whom an online survey was administered.

Results show that system quality satisfaction is more significant for transactional customers, but information quality and service quality satisfactions are more important for relational customers. Moreover, perceived control and perceived enjoyment partially moderate quality satisfaction between transactional and relational customers.

One limitation is that a student cohort is selected as the sample. This study verifies the understanding of quality satisfaction between transactional and relational customers in e-commerce.

Practitioners shall consider the quality of services for fitting different types of customers. While a high-quality system design is better for new customers, high-quality information and service support is helpful for loyal customers. However, if loyal customers have a high degree of perceived control, they may also be more sensitive to system quality satisfaction. Similarly, if new customers have a high degree of perceived control or a high degree of perceived enjoyment, they may be more sensitive to information quality satisfaction.

This study contributes to the knowledge regarding quality satisfaction for transactional and relational customers in e-commerce.

This study aims to provide a taxonomy of relational benefits that drive customer loyalty in sharing-economy services, assess the relative strengths of these relational benefits in influencing customer loyalty and examine whether commitment mediates the influence of relational benefits on customer loyalty in this context.

Relational benefits of sharing-economy services were explored through a focus group interview, followed by an online survey completed by 440 respondents in China. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

This study shows that confidence and social benefits have significant and positive effects on commitment in sharing-economy services. In addition, safety benefits, a new type of relational benefits, also significantly affect commitment in this context. Furthermore, the findings suggest that commitment acts as a mediator between confidence, social and safety benefits and customer loyalty. Special treatment benefits had no effect on commitment and loyalty in the sharing-economy context.

This paper provides sharing-economy service providers with insight on how to better create and sustain loyal relationships with customers through the provision of relational benefits.

This study offers initial insight into why customers would stay in peer-to-peer relationships in the sharing economy, and suggests how to strengthen relationships between customers and peer service providers.

This paper aims to explore benefits customers expect from a long‐term relationship with their bank and the costs associated with such a relationship; it further tests these relational benefits and costs as segmentation variables.

A qualitative study based on three focus groups was designed to provide initial input on different types of expected relational benefits and costs. Then, quantitative data were collected from a survey of 209 real bank customers.

Analysis reveals five types of expected benefits and two types of costs. Four clusters were formed out of these seven expected benefits/costs. These clusters are also different on demographic, behavioral and psychographic variables and present clear and consistent relational profiles.

Scales developed from the focus groups need further validation. Also, findings should be considered as sector and context specific. This work brings additional insight into the nature of expected relational benefits and costs, supports their usefulness for customer segmentation and offers opportunities for studying relational benefits and costs in an integrated way.

Findings provide managers with a better understanding of what customers value in the relationship with their bank and what keeps customers back from having a “close” relationship. Also, relational benefits/costs segmentation is suggested as a powerful tool for targeting and positioning.

The study identifies new types of relational benefits and costs. It is the first time expected relational benefits and costs are studied together and confirmed as meaningful segmentation variables.

The purpose of this research is to understand what pricing, purchasing, product defect and late deliveries factors are associated with the decisions of small, medium and large size customers to enter into closer customer‐supplier relationships with their suppliers.

The study involves a survey of 372 professionals in the paper industry to investigate the linkage between pricing, purchasing efficiencies and reductions in product defects and later deliveries and relational exchanges across customers of different sizes and resources.

The results indicate that the pricing, purchasing, product defect and late delivery factors associated with relational supply chain exchanges are different for small, medium and large size customers.

Data were collected from individuals’ perspectives of the customer‐supplier relationships within customer organization only and involved the exchange of one type of product. Similar studies need to be conducted in other industries involving other types of product exchanges that capture both customer and supplier perspectives to verify these findings.

Supplier sales and marketing managers need to understand that different sized customers with different resources may have different performance objectives when entering into relational exchanges. These varying customer performance objectives should help supplier marketing managers to better segment their relational exchange customers and help them in assessing their ability to satisfy varying customer relational exchange performance goals.

While the linkage between closer customer‐supplier relationships and pricing, purchasing, product delivery has been studied in prior research, this is one of the first studies to show that different customer performance factors are associated with different sizes of customers and their relational exchanges. This paper also suggests that further research grounded on a resource‐based theory (RBT) of the firm would be valuable in better understanding the factors associated with different customers' relational exchanges.

This paper aims to examine the impacts of relational capital on supply chain quality integration (SCQI) and operational performance from the holistic perspective of the entire supply chain.

Structural equation modeling with LISREL was used to test the conceptual model based on data collected from 308 companies in China.

The results indicate that with the exception of internal relational capital not having a significant impact on customer quality integration, supplier, internal and customer relational capital have positive impacts on supplier, internal and customer quality integration, which consequently improve operational performance. The results also show that internal relational capital has positive impacts on supplier and customer relational capital, and internal quality integration has positive impacts on supplier and customer quality integration.

The results provide important managerial insights for the improvement of operational performance through the development of relational capital and the implementation of SCQI practices throughout the supply chain.

The authors contribute to the relational capital and supply chain quality management literature by exploring the effectiveness of relational capital in improving SCQI and operational performance from the holistic perspective of the entire supply chain. The findings enrich the knowledge of SCQI management from the perspective of relational capital.

The purpose of this study is to revisit brand performance metrics (BPMs) (brand affinity, brand content and knowledge, brand image, brand ethics and brand value) and evaluate the moderated mediation effect of relationship quality (mediator) and relationship duration (moderator) in brand performance and customer loyalty relationship in an Indian banking context.

The research model was tested in the Indian banking sector. The primary data was collected from the 1,000 account holders of five Indian public and private banks. The data was analysed and validated using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation modelling and the Hayes process were used for testing the hypotheses.

The study results established BPMs as a four-dimensional structure comprising brand affinity, brand content and knowledge, brand image, brand ethics and brand value. The BPMs significantly positively impact relational quality (RQ) and customer loyalty. Further results also prove the existence of moderated mediation effect on BPMs and customer loyalty link and portray that the impact of BPMs on customer loyalty is mediated by the RQ and influenced by relationship duration.

The study is confined to the Indian banking sector. It did not examine the dimension-wise impact of brand performance indicators on RQ and customer loyalty. Future research is required to explore their influence in banking and other sectors.

The study findings suggest that to enhance brand performance, banks need to follow excellence in every conduct, take immediate actions against inappropriate behaviour, consistently update their relevant and valuable contents (news, videos, white papers, e-books, case studies, FAQ’s, photos, etc.) on their websites and also introduce loyalty schemes to reimburse customers’ interests with some substantial benefits such as rebates, discounts, annual gifts and extraordinary or additional services. These strategies can pave the way for enhancing long-term quality relationships between customers and their service providers and increasing customer loyalty.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is a maiden attempt to assess the effect of BPMs on customer loyalty in the presence of RQ and at the value of relationship duration/length. Besides, the study results also prove the existence of moderated mediation effect and portray that the impact of customer equity and relational benefits on customer loyalty is influenced by relationship duration and mediated by RQ.

The authors apply Alan P. Fiske's relational models framework to customers' engagement with service firms – specifically, they propose that customers who hold different relational models for the service firm are likely to engage with the firm in dissimilar ways, thus generating different types of customer engagement value for the firm. Fiske's relational models framework is eminently suitable for studying customer-service firm engagement because it is widely adopted in the social sciences as a rigorously developed framework for conceptualizing social interactions.

The article bridges Fiske's relational models framework and Kumar et al.'s customer engagement value framework, and conceptually demonstrates that customers employing different relational models for the service firm are likely to generate different types of customer engagement value for the firm.

The article demonstrates conceptually that customers' relational models, schemata, and scripts influence how consumers engage with the firm and the type of customer engagement value accruing to the firm.

This research has implications for service firms' relationship strategies. First, service marketers can determine the desired customer engagement value(s) and then craft their customer relationship strategy so that it maximizes those engagement value(s). The article suggests relationship strategies that service firms may implement for encouraging customers to adopt different relational models.

No research has bridged relational models theories and customer engagement value theories.

The paper aims to study the relationship between corporate social responsibility, green supply chain management, and operational performance and the moderating effects of relational capital on these relationships.

The authors conduct an empirical study with a structural equation modeling approach to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility—constructed by the quality and environmental responsibility, green supply chain management—including green supplier and customer management and operational performance—manifested by quality, cost, flexibility, and delivery performance using data from 308 manufacturers in China. Besides, the authors explore the moderating effect of supplier and customer relational capital on these relationships.

The findings indicate that a company's quality and environmental responsibility significantly impacts its green supply chain management practices, which further improve its operational performance in quality, cost, flexibility, and delivery. In addition, supplier and customer relational capital strengthens the influence of environmental responsibility on green supply chain management. While supplier relational capital reinforces the impact of green supplier management on flexibility and delivery performance, customer relational capital only strengthens the influence of green customer management on flexibility performance.

The study enriches the extant literature by developing a holistic framework integrating corporate social responsibility, green supply chain management, relational capital, and operational performance and unraveling their intricate relationships. The authors’ findings help practitioners prioritize proactive steps in environmental conservation more than achieving operational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effect of functional value and symbolic value between positive moods and word-of-mouth (WOM) referrals in the context of Taiwan’s banking industry. In addition, this study investigates the moderating effect of relational benefits on the relationship between perceived value and WOM.

The research model was tested using data collected from customers (n=362) of the top 10 domestic banks in Taiwan. Structure equation modeling was employed to test and validate the conceptual model.

Positive moods are found to be an important predictor of functional value, symbolic value and WOM in this banking service study. Four types of relational benefits are identified including social, special treatment, confidence and face. Note that two distinct segments of bank customers are identified in terms of relational benefits: those who appreciate face benefits (n₁=169), and those who appreciate general relational benefits (n₂=193). The findings reveal the existence of partial mediation between a banking customer’s mood and WOM through functional value and symbolic value in the overall sample (n=362). However, it was found that functional value partially mediates the influence of positive moods on WOM among respondents in the “general relational benefits” segment only. That is, relational benefits are found to moderate the relationship between functional value and WOM.

This study expands the existing body of knowledge on customers’ perceptions of value by differentiating types of value perceptions.