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This paper aims to, building on the concept of relational benefits, relationship marketing investments, gratitude, satisfaction and favorable reciprocal behaviors, examine the mechanism of cultivating relationships with valued customers at an upscale restaurant.

To capture the traits of the population (upscale restaurant customers who perceive relationship marketing investments by experiencing relational benefits), upscale restaurant customers with membership cards were contacted in the survey. Structural equation modeling was used to test measurement and structural models.

Empirical findings indicated that confidence and social benefits positively contributed to relationship marketing investments, whereas special treatment benefits were not significantly related to relationship marketing investments. In turn, relationship marketing investments positively affected both gratitude and satisfaction; relationship marketing investments were also more associated with gratitude than satisfaction. Gratitude positively evoked favorable reciprocal behaviors; however, satisfaction did not trigger favorable reciprocal behaviors.

The integration of relationship marketing investments and gratitude into the conceptual model would allow the current findings to generate rich theoretical and practical implications that the extant hospitality literature has not elucidated.

Relationship marketing is about developing, maintaining and sustaining mutually beneficial customer–organisation relationships as measured by economic gains. Yet, a purely economic focus does not fully offer a psychological explanation of relationship marketing outcomes. In this regard, this paper has considered gratitude as a significant component of personal relationships, which offers insights into a customer–organisation relationships. Accordingly, this study aims to examine gratitude as a mechanism to predict relationship marketing outcomes, such as overall satisfaction, trust and commitment.

Data were collected from 1,093 millennial consumers across three university campuses.

Results indicate that gratitude is a mediating mechanism that can explain the relationship between young consumers’ perceptions of relationship marketing investments and overall satisfaction, trust and commitment. Perceived benevolence strengthens the relationship between perceived relationship marketing investments and customer gratitude.

The gratitude model contributes an alternative understanding of how young consumers’ perceptions of an organisation’s marketing investments are important in achieving a high degree of relationship marketing outcomes. This paper further incorporates the moderating roles of customer cynicism and perceptions of benevolence, key individual and relational characteristics, that influence the level of gratitude individuals to experience in response to the investments made by organisations.

This study aims to propose the emotional response of gratitude as a mediating mechanism to explain the relationship between perceptions of a service organisations’ relationship marketing investments, customer cynicism and reciprocity and overall satisfaction. Further, the study seeks to test the significance of the mediation effects of these constructs on customer overall satisfaction.

Using theories from service marketing and consumer psychology, this study develops and tests a customer gratitude model (CGM). Field surveys based on existing measures were used to elicit data from 1,104 respondents. The measures were validated and subsequently the CGM was tested to establish the veracity if the nomological network presented.

Results indicate that perceived relationship marketing investment exerted an indirect effect on gratitude through the mediating effect of reciprocity and cynicism. Further, perceived relationship marketing investments impacted overall satisfaction through its mediating effect of gratitude, and gratitude explained the indirect influences of reciprocity and customer cynicism on overall satisfaction.

This study contributes to services marketing literature by examining the emergent role of gratitude between customer perceptions of service organisations and pro-organisational attitudes, like overall satisfaction.

This research encourages service organisations to implement relationship-building strategies, beyond that of purely economic benefits, that seek to enhance the emotion of gratitude, which will lead to greater overall customer satisfaction.

Despite emphasising relationship longevity between customers and service organisations, literature has not yet focused on the role of gratitude. The CGM provides valuable insights for further inquiries.

This study aims to elucidate how different relationship investment efforts by a service firm affect its customers’ perceived relationship investment; to determine how perceived relationship investment influences various dimensions of relationship strength; and to explore the moderating effects of customer innovativeness and complaint propensity on the relationship between the perceived relationship investment and relationship strength.

To minimize common method variance, data were collected from pairs of life insurance agents in China and their clients using self-report questionnaires. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that customers value financial effort most followed by social effort and structural effort. Perceived relationship investment influences the affective strength most strongly, followed by cognitive strength and conative strength. Customer innovativeness and complaint propensity both moderate the effectiveness of perceived relationship investment in influencing two of the three dimensions of relationship strength.

This study is among the first to specify how service employees can guide consumer perceptions of relationship investment by applying three types of relationship investment effort. The impact of perceived relationship investment on different dimensions of relationship strength was assessed to demonstrate how service providers can benefit from investing in building consumer relationships. The moderating impact of consumer innovativeness and of complaint propensity was quantified. The research findings have important implications for managing different relationship investment as well as recruiting and training service employees.

Economic theories applied to the study of buyer‐seller relationships draw to a large extent on the problems caused by specific investments. This contribution aims to develop a new perspective on specific investments that accounts for their value‐adding character and also to present a transaction‐centred definition of customer relationships.

The contribution draws on a comparative review on literature on business networks and economic theories focused on industrial buying behaviour.

Provides a transaction‐related definition of customer relationships in order to distinguish between different kinds of relationships and provides a framework to how relationship management is able to enhance marketing activities.

Specific investments are a powerful tool for differentiating the market offerings of a company. One central implication is for managers to realise on which stage of the market arena such differentiation is likely to be successful: transaction, relationship, segment or value network. This is the starting‐point for investing in a relationship portfolio conducive for the value generation of the company.

The paper shows that the value potential generated by specific investments is not fulfilled in the realms of present marketing literature. Also it is the first contribution to present a framework capable of treating phenomena of customer relationship management, relationship marketing and network marketing on the same footing, while still respecting the original motivations of those approaches.

This paper aims to investigate the roles of renqing (reciprocal favor) and ganqing (positive affect) as consequences of relationship marketing investments (three dimensions: financial, social and structural) and antecedents of customer loyalty.

A quantitative survey methodology using self-administered questionnaires has been adopted to collect data of 218 procurement staffs from the database of China Purchasing Managers’ Club. Hypotheses tests were conducted using structural equation modeling.

The results reveal that financial and social relationship marketing investments, but not structural relationship marketing investments, are crucial in evoking renqing and ganqing. The results also provide strong evidence of the relationship between renqing and ganqing, which in turn are necessary determinants of customer loyalty.

This research is among the first to examine and confirm renqing and ganqing as a mediating mechanism through which financial and social relationship marketing investments influence attitudinal loyalty, and also through attitudinal loyalty ultimately affects behavioral loyalty. Findings imply the need for Chinese firms in general, and business-to-business context in particular, to strategically lever on the key antecedents of customer loyalty including relationship marketing investments, renqing and ganqing, in pursuit of a more competitive advantage and long-term profit.

The purpose of this paper is to quantify the monetary amount of relationship investment in an investment banking context, investigate the drivers behind these relationship investments and look for evidence indicating reciprocity from the clients who receive these relationship investments. Relationship marketing has been one of the dominant mantras in marketing strategy circles, yet there is a lack of empirical evidence to prove significant relationship investment and reciprocity between exchange partners.

Relationship investment as the monetary amount by which the fair value of a loan at issuance is below its par value is measured. Regression analysis is used to study the drivers of relationship investment, including relationship depth, relationship breadth and relationship potential. Finally, reciprocity is studied as the extent to which bank’s expectations are realized through future revenues.

Based on 164 loans issued by a multinational investment bank, it was found that the bank provides significant monetary benefit to its corporate clients. The amount of monetary benefit provided to each client depends on the breadth and potential of the bank-borrower relationship. The author also finds evidence suggesting that the clients reciprocated these relationship investments and the bank anticipated the reciprocity by clients.

This paper is the first to empirically show a significant monetary investment in a relationship-marketing context, with the intention of building stronger relationship with clients and earning future revenues through reciprocity.

This paper aims to explore the moderating impact of four moderators, namely, retailer brand strength, customer’s perceived purchase regularity, gender and purchase channel (online and offline) on the relationship between relationship marketing investments (RMIs) and customer gratitude, and customer gratitude and customer loyalty. The context of research is the purchase of a high-involvement product by Indian customers.

This study adapts Huang RMIs-Gratitude-Loyalty model and empirically validates the associated hypotheses using structural equation modeling. Data is collected through the survey method.

The study (N = 385) results suggest a significant impact of preferential treatment and interpersonal communication investments on customer’s feeling of gratitude toward the retailer and, consequently, on loyalty. Purchase channel, gender and, to a lesser extent, customer perceived regularity each moderates the relationships between marketing investment and gratitude, and that between gratitude and loyalty; surprisingly, retailer brand is not a significant moderator.

Future research can factor in the impact of loyalty program on the proposed relationships.

This research offers helpful guidelines for retailers, especially for those who currently have a multichannel presence and invest or plan to invest in relationship marketing to obtain benefits from customer loyalty.

This investigation explores not only the relevance of RMIs–gratitude–loyalty model in the Indian retail context but also the influence of moderating variables on the retailers’ efforts of gaining consumer loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the practical application of dynamic capabilities theory to improve investment decisions in customer relationship management (CRM).

Action research (AR) allows managers to raise the tacit knowledge of their dynamic capabilities to a level where they can be identified and developed. A framework and a process for managing dynamic capabilities in marketing are presented.

The findings relate to the nature of dynamic capabilities in marketing and how they are managed.

Marketing managers can improve the return on investments in CRM.

The paper presents a method for applying dynamic capabilities drawn from the resource‐based view (RBV) to practical marketing problems.

This study includes relationship marketing concepts (i.e. trust, commitment, and satisfaction) as precursors to transaction cost theory outcomes (i.e. specific investments, opportunism, and formalization) which are rarely, if ever, included together. Trust and commitment lead to satisfaction and satisfaction in turn leads transaction cost outcomes. The paper aims to address these issues.

The random sample is 600 small‐ to medium‐sized Norwegian manufacturers. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling was used to examine the responses from 212 key informants.

The strongest positive associations are from the relationship marketing portion of the model including trust satisfaction and commitment satisfaction. The highest negative association in the model is satisfaction opportunism. Contrary to predictions, satisfaction did not have a significant association with either specific investments or formalization.

Both relationship marketing and transaction cost theory concepts are examined because it is likely that business success may be motivated by both theories. Limitations of the study are that it only includes small‐ and medium‐sized companies in Norway. Second, it does not cover all business‐to‐business relationships (i.e. only manufacturer‐supplier relationships are included). Finally, additional concepts should be included (i.e. dependence, cooperation, and control).

The results suggest that managers should work developing high levels of satisfaction in business relationships to dampen the likelihood that business partners will be opportunistic. In this regard, working on a relationship serves as a safeguard against possible future risks (e.g. opportunism).

This study is a seed for future research about the causes and outcomes of satisfaction in business relationships.