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Based on previous research in services, marketing, organizational behavior and psychology, this paper aims to identify four types of loyalty bonds that an individual can form with a firm as well as a select set of firm and situational variables which likely result in the formation of each bond. It then aims to examine the influence of each bond on the relationship strength between a customer and a service provider.

Using a mail survey, female respondents over the age of 25 assessed shopping situations in two service‐provider settings – a grocery store and a beauty salon. Scenarios manipulated aspects of the service experience based on firm and situational variables.

This study confirms the existence of four primary types of loyalty bonds – utilitarian, affective, symbolic, and obligatory. Firm and situational variables maximally impact each type of loyalty bond. The bonds predict relationship strength with the service provider.

Complex relationships are apparent between the different types of bonds. Further research is needed to understand how firm and situational variables interact in different service settings.

The authors' research shows that customers may form different types of loyalty bonds with firms, some that are controllable by the firm and some which are less controllable. Results provide a starting point for tactical decision making regarding which bonds service providers would like to target in the development of their relationship marketing programs.

The authors contribute to the services marketing literature by examining when specific loyalty bonds are created and how these bonds impact relationship strength.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a cross‐cultural study which examined individualism's moderating effect on the relationship between bonding and commitment between banks and their corporate clients.

Data were collected through surveys completed by corporate customers from 126 Canadian companies and 156 Indian companies. Multiple regression analysis was used to calculate relative effects of structural and social bond on commitment across the two samples. Hierarchical moderated regression analysis was used to examine individualism's moderating effect on the bonding‐commitment relationship.

The paper's findings indicate that social and structural bonding are both antecedent to commitment, but that social bonding is given higher importance in the low individualism Indian society, while structural bonding is more important in the high individualism Canadian society. Individualism moderates the relationship between both social and structural bonding and commitment.

Bank relationships are dependent upon specific cultural contexts in which buyers and sellers interact. The type of bonding relationship (e.g. social or structural) determines the strength of commitment. Bank managers must understand the proper emphasis to place on developing social connections versus business transactional relationships with clients in individualistic versus collective cultures.

This paper dramatizes the importance of understanding ways in which bonding relates to commitment, particularly when societal values vary and thus alter the relative importance of forms of bonding that generate commitment. Through empirical analyses, the paper demonstrates the moderating effect of individualism on the social bonding‐commitment and structural bonding‐commitment linkages in the context of an important service sector. To date, these relationships have not been explored in either the Indian or Canadian context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of relationship bonds on the psychological response and behavior of bank employees based on the job demands–resources theory. Specifically, it examines the effects of relationship bonds in terms of person–job (P–J) fit, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction and boundary-spanning behaviors, all of which comprise the behavioral dimensions of bank employees. In addition, the study examines how the resiliency of bank employees influences their emotional exhaustion and determines whether a moderating effect related to emotional exhaustion exists.

To achieve this aim, data were collected from 365 customer-facing banking employees in South Korea. Reliability, validity and the hypotheses were verified through structural equation modeling; any moderating effects were identified using the bootstrap method and the process model.

Study results showed that financial, structural, internal social and external social bonds – the bonds pertaining to relationship elements – have positive effects on P–J fit. P–J fit influenced emotional exhaustion negatively and job satisfaction positively. Furthermore, emotional exhaustion negatively influenced job satisfaction. Job satisfaction had positive effects on service delivery, external representation and internal influence, the elements comprising boundary-spanning behavior. Finally, resiliency was shown to lower emotional exhaustion but revealed no moderating effect.

First, this study examined relationship bonds, which reference relationship marketing when introducing organizational resources that influence the psychological and behavioral responses of bank employees. Second, this study introduced resiliency as a personal resource and clarified the way it applies to an individual’s psychological response. Third, existing literature has been limited to conducting fragmented research of the psychological factors that intervene in predisposing factors and job outcomes. This study makes a unique contribution by establishing a psychological response process.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of relational bonding on intention and loyalty and the mediating role of commitment foci in the service context.

The study used a cross-sectional and quantitative mail survey approach. Bank customers in New Zealand were surveyed, and multiple analytical techniques were used to measure the relationships between consumer bonding, commitment foci and loyalty behavioral intentions and the mediating role of commitment foci in service relationships.

The results confirm that commitment foci or targets of commitment are important mediators in the relationships between bonding and loyalty-related behavioral intentions. The findings provide new theoretical knowledge about the mediating effect of the commitment foci in service relationships and significantly enhance knowledge about consumers’ intention and loyalty.

The research provides several noteworthy insights into the role of social and structural bonding in consumers’ commitment and loyalty in the service context, as well as provides an important implication for segmentation.

The study contributes to the service research on consumers’ intention and loyalty behavior toward the commitment foci. Introducing the role of commitment foci as a mediating mechanism within the context of a service encounter is new in the services marketing literature. This study provides a better understanding of consumers’ perceptions of and behaviors toward the commitment foci, as well as their intention and loyalty.

While the literature attends to how customer retention strategies develop relationship quality (e.g. trust), it does not account for the potential mediator (s) in this relationship. The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of brand relationship quality (BRQ) in the relationship between relational bonds and brand loyalty in retail service contexts.

A total of 524 valid questionnaires from respondents aged between 15 and 24 are analyzed using structural equation modeling.

First, BRQ significantly mediates the relationship between relational bonds and brand loyalty. Second, structural bonds are the only driver of attitudinal attachment; social and structural bonds lead to a sense of community. Third, attitudinal attachment is the main influence on both behavioral and attitudinal loyalty.

First, a focus on a single market segment, i.e. 15-24 year olds. Second the dimensions used to measure relational bonds and BRQ might not be applicable to other contexts. Third, does not consider potentially important moderator(s). Fourth, does not distinguish between store and product brands.

This study makes the following contributions to the literature: First, demonstrates the importance of BRQ as a mediator in the relationship between relational bonds and brand loyalty. Second, elucidates the role of BRQ in establishing brand loyalty in three theoretical frameworks applied to retail service contexts. Third, suggests a more comprehensive view of brand loyalty involving both behavioral and attitudinal dimensions. Fourth, proposes the managerial implications of this work for the customer retention strategies of retail service firms.

The marketing literature theorizes the adoption of the relationship marketing paradigm to foster stronger customer relationships. However, empirical evidence is scarce on how consumers' ability to judge the service influences such relational exchange. This paper aims to examine how information asymmetry influences a service firm's initiative to build customer relationships. The relationship marketing literature proposes conceptually that relational bonds and their interaction influence relationship outcomes. However, there is no empirical study to verify such an interactive effect. This study aims to provide empirical evidence on how interaction effects between relational bonds can act as buffers in developing customer relationships.

In the first stage, this study classifies financial services offered by retail banks into search, experience, and credence (SEC) categories. In the second stage, this paper uses survey data from 452 UK retail bank customers to understand the effect of relational bonds on consumer future intentions in information asymmetry context using hierarchical regressions.

The results show that relational bonds have differential impacts on firms' initiative to develop consumer relationship, and information asymmetry moderates this relationship. A positive synergistic association is present between relational bonds that strengthen their effectiveness in influencing relationships.

This study is the first attempt to demonstrate the moderation role of information asymmetry on relational bonds→relationship quality→relationship outcome framework. The findings provide directions to managers on how to have a balanced approach in their relationship building efforts.

The commitment of service employees to an organization is a critical concern that affects the success of an organization. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the social bonds between the supervisor and the employee, and among employees, foster organizational commitment in employees. The study subsequently explored the moderating role of work status (full-time vs parttime) and employee individualistic values in the relationship between social bonding and commitment.

Empirical data were collected from the frontline employees of restaurants in Taiwan (n=395). Hierarchical moderated regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between social bonds and relationship commitment and the moderating effect of work status and individualistic values on the social bonding-commitment relationship.

The results show that social bonding is an antecedent to organizational commitment, and work status and individualistic values moderate the social bonding-commitment relationship. The effect of social bonding on organizational commitment is stronger for full-time and less individualistic employees than for part-time and more individualistic employees.

This research contributes to knowledge of the effect of social bonding on employee organizational commitment, and provides evidence showing that work status and employee values affect the social bonding-commitment relationship.

This paper reports the results of a three-year-long research on business relationships, relying on qualitative data gathered through multiple-case study research of four focal companies operating in Australia. The industry settings are as follows: steel construction, vegetable oils trading, aluminum and steel can manufacture, and imaging solutions. The research analyzes two main aspects of relationships: structure and process. This paper deals with structure describing it by the most desired features of intercompany relationships for each focal company. The primary research data have been coded drawing on extant research into business relationships. The main outcome of this part of the research is a five construct model composed by trust, commitment, bonds, distance, and information sharing that accounts for all informants’ utterances about relationship structure.

This paper aims to study the impact of individual relationships on tacit knowledge sharing in the company setting of compulsory bond, expressive bond, instrumental bond and self-monitoring by empirical explorations.

The paper raises seven hypotheses that focus on the impact of employees’ relationship with tacit knowledge sharing in knowledge-intensive industries and positions based on relationship theory. Before distributing the formal questionnaires, a pre-research was done in a college by collecting comments and suggestions so as to correct and modify the questionnaires. A four-page questionnaire based on the Likert scale with 45 questions was used for data collection, and 210 valid questionnaires were collected from a research institute, a software company and an educational institute. Finally, SPSS17.0 was used to analyze these data, including reliability analysis, validity analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis, etc.

The findings include: there is a positive correlation between employees’ compulsory bond and the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing; there is a positive correlation between employees’ expressive bond and the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing; there is a negative correlation between employees’ instrumental bond and the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing; the more apt employees are at self-monitoring, the more effectively they will share tacit knowledge; the interaction between compulsory bonds and self-monitoring has a positive and stimulating impact on tacit knowledge sharing; the interaction between expressive bonds and self-monitoring has a positive and stimulating impact on tacit knowledge sharing; and the interaction between instrumental bonds and self-monitoring has a certain impact on tacit knowledge sharing.

However, the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing cannot be measured easily and how to share the tacit knowledge based on employees’ relationships should be further concerned by knowledge industries.

This paper illustrates multiple, in-depth approaches to research on knowledge sharing. It shows why it is important to pay attention to employees’ relationships during the process of tacit knowledge sharing. The author argued some key factors such as compulsory bond, emotional bond and self-monitoring that may have a certain impact on the tacit knowledge sharing. The paper also further discussed the influence on the sharing of tacit knowledge as for the interaction between different relationship types and self-monitoring.

The knowledge is critical to enhance enterprises’ performance, and it will become more useful when the new knowledge is shared with others. However, tacit knowledge cannot be measured easily, and how to share the tacit knowledge based on employees’ relationships should be further concerned by knowledge industries. A series of findings are proposed in this paper.

Integrating the knowledge of different individuals, of which 90 per cent is tacit knowledge, in an organization that engages in producing products and providing service is instrumental to the sustainability and productivity of that organization. This study addressed the factors and dynamics of tacit knowledge sharing that can be used in knowledge management to effectively capture, store and disseminate tacit knowledge across an organization.

The purpose of this paper is to create an audit method for analyzing and improving business relationships. This is accomplished by specifying bonds on a lower abstraction level than in earlier theory regarding bonds in order to classify the different types of bonds and analyze their strength.

The findings are based on 14 case studies in seven different industries. The methodology used is systematic and based on the abductive approach. Qualitative interviews were conducted.

Bonds were found to be important regulators of business relationships in this study. The main finding is that a bond audit can be used as a tool for analyzing business relationships and for consulting activity with the aim of strengthening or weakening business relationships.

By influencing the bonds using bond management, companies can strengthen or weaken the business relationship.

The paper describes an audit method for analyzing business relationships by stringently analyzing all parts of it using the bond‐auditing tool, and thus auditing bonds more specifically than has been done previously.