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A study of 205 US commercial service providers, representing 31 two‐digit SIC codes, identified companies’ customer relationship‐building objectives and practices. Of 42 possible relationship‐building objectives, the four rated as top priorities were: encouraging customers to think of the firm first when considering a purchase; providing better service; encouraging customers to speak favorably about the firm; and encouraging customers to trust the firm. Answers to open‐ended, exploratory questions revealed 18 categories of relationship‐building initiatives. The findings suggest that “customer relationship‐building” means different things to different people and that practices to build such relationships vary considerably. By inventorying the range of relationship‐building objectives, quantifying their priority levels, and identifying specific practices used to build customer relationships, a greater understanding of current practices was achieved. Thus, the findings promise to benefit researchers, practitioners and consumers in terms of knowledge development, prescriptions for success, and enhanced value and satisfaction, respectively.

Integrating anxiety and uncertainty management (AUM) theory and theory of organizing, this study aims to contribute to the knowledge management literature by examining the interdependent and bidirectional nature of knowledge transfer between expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs). Specifically, the authors investigate how receivers’ cognitive response to senders’ behaviors during their interactions becomes an important conduit between senders’ behaviors and the successful transfer of knowledge.

The authors used the actor partner interdependence model to analyze data from 107 expatriate-HCN dyads. The authors collected the responses of these expatriate-HCN dyads in Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and India.

Receivers’ interaction anxiety and uncertainty, as a response to senders’ relationship building behaviors, mediate the relationship between senders’ relationship building behaviors and successful knowledge transfer. When senders are expatriates, senders’ communication patience and relationship building behaviors interact to reduce the direct and indirect effects of both receivers’ interaction anxiety and uncertainty. However, when senders are HCNs, the moderation and moderated mediation models are not supported.

The study contributes to the knowledge management literature by investigating knowledge transfer between expatriates and HCNs using an interpersonal cross-cultural communication lens. The authors make refinements to AUM theory by going beyond the sender role to highlighting the interdependence between senders and receivers in the management of anxiety and uncertainty which, in turn, influences the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication. The study is also unique in that the authors underscore an important yet understudied construct, communication patience, in the successful transfer of knowledge.

To understand how research-participant relationships are formed in research settings through experiences and analyses of content-specific gendered identity practices.

I draw upon a school-based ethnographically informed study exploring the construction of masculinities among white working-class boys in three schools in South London, United Kingdom between 2009 and 2011. To access participants’ perceptions, I used a methodology of observation, focus groups, semi-structured interviews and visual methods.

Themes of gendered embodiment, physicality and performance play a part in the formation of relationships in this study. Furthermore, such themes play a role – to varying degrees – in researcher-participant relationship-building. In understanding relationship-building practices, I make connections to my own reflexivity accounting for the multifaceted nature of identities, lifestyles and perspectives present in researcher-participant interaction.

Throughout the fieldwork, constructs of gender, nationality and class all contributed to how relationships were built. In navigating the power relations innate to all relationship-building, I discuss how I capitalised on my outsider status in terms of nationality to neutralise certain elements of class and gender that were normative to my participants, but, simultaneously, draw upon my insider status in terms of knowledge of the locale, humour and clothing which contributed greatly to how the relationships were constructed and maintained.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe associations between the strategic (market/industry) context, the operational requirements, and the work design of in‐house, inbound call centres in the financial sector.

This cross‐sectional study uses data from a survey conducted between February 2002 and September 2005 as part of the Global Call Centre Industry Project, which included call centres from 17 countries. The present analysis is based on a sub‐sample of 375 call centres from that survey.

Managers of in‐house, inbound call centres in the financial‐services sector claim that they adopt a relationship‐oriented approach to the work of their call centres; however, the present study demonstrates that they fail to design their employees' work appropriately to meet this requirement. This is especially the case for call centres in the insurance sector.

The original data collection was undertaken in a much broader context than this delineated study. There is a need to develop the concepts of relationship building and work design in the context of call centres. There is also a need to explore the perspective of employees with regard to operational requirements and work design and the customer's perception of service quality.

If managers of call centres in the financial‐services sector really wish to encourage relationship building between employees and customers, they need to reconsider the current work design of their call centres.

The paper enhances knowledge of how operational requirements are linked to work design in call centres.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the significance of contracts in long‐term relationship building comparing public and private contexts. In order to investigate this, the paper addresses literature about relationship building, negotiation process and the role of contracts.

This paper takes a qualitative approach and is based on comparative studies between the private and public sectors with the main focus on four companies within the public transport and paper industry. The unit of analysis is the enterprise's use of contracts in relationships. The analysis is based on the empirical material received from interviews and contextual analysis of the actual contracts. Internal and external documents have also been used in the analysis. The paper has categorized the material into different areas in relation to the relationship building.

In this paper the authors highlight the importance of contracts in the interaction between companies in different business situations. The findings in this study show that contracts function as cornerstones in relationship building. The conclusions also indicate that the type of contract used is depending of the uncertainty in the business relationship due to the relationship lifecycle. A main contribution from the study is that contracts affect the relationship building. In the private sector the relationship forms the contract while in the public sector the contract forms the relationships.

Previous research has mainly focused on how to manage long‐term relationships where the relationship is the result of a gradual development process between the parties and where there are few or next to no regulations regarding the interactions between the parties, for example who are involved or how the counterparty should be selected. Consequently, the results of this study adds to the literature the importance of contracts in long‐term relationship building comparing private and public contexts. Further, previous research has acknowledged that there is a need for more empirical research concerning the nature and form of contractual arrangements.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the mediating and moderating effects of relational flexibility norms on relationship building capacities and export performance.

The study followed a quantitative and cross-sectional approach. The analysis was applied to 95 Peruvian Exporting SMEs which were examined through structural equation modelling (SEM) using AMOS 24.0 statistical package. The responses were gathered through telephone and personal interviews which were tested using the Mann–Whitney U test, finding no statistically significant differences.

The main finding of the study is to demonstrate the indirect effect of relational flexibility norms on the export performance of SMEs through relationship-building capabilities. In this way, these capabilities become very important variables in the export management of SMEs, since they directly affect the relationship of the Exporter–Importer dyad.

One of the limitations is the cross-sectional type study that applies to the short-term effects of relational norms. Organizational characteristics and other factors that may affect export performance should also be considered in future research, as well as longitudinal studies should be developed.

The study allows SMEs to focus management efforts on strengthening the relationship – building capabilities, which are very important given SMEs' resource constraints. Therefore, an adequate management of relations with importers can contribute to the reduction of control and coordination costs; and have a positive impact on export performance. Similarly, the study contributes to the management of export promotion by suggesting that one area to be prioritized is the strengthening of the relationship capacities of exporting SMEs.

The study provides the analysis of the mediating effect of the relationship-building capability between relational flexibility and export performance. In this way, it enriches the theoretical analysis and contributes with the empirical evidence of an emerging country like the case of Peru.

Companies' voices on social justice issues, such as racial justice, gender equality and LGBTQ rights, have become increasingly prevalent. To contribute to current knowledge around corporate communication on social justice, this study aims to understand the differential effects of three types of corporate social justice statements – symbolic statements, substantive statements on external actions and substantive statements on internal actions.

A between-subjects experiment was conducted (N = 502), with different types of statements as the independent variable and corporate reputation and perceived corporate relationship-building efforts as outcomes. The three dimensions of perceived authenticity (i.e. perceived benevolence, transparency and commitment) were included as parallel mediators.

This study found that compared to symbolic statements, substantive statements on external or internal actions generated higher perceived authenticity on at least one of the three dimensions, which in turn, led to a more positive corporate reputation and perceived relationship-building efforts. Substantive statements on external actions and on internal actions also had differential indirect effects on the outcomes through different dimensions of perceived authenticity. Partisanship did not have a moderating effect on the mediating effects of perceived authenticity.

This study highlights the importance of authenticity in corporate social justice communication and reveals practical implications about how businesses should communicate with publics when engaging in social justice issues.

This study is among the earliest efforts to examine the effects of different corporate social justice statements. It contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating the impacts of perceived authenticity on publics' evaluation of companies and opens up an avenue for future research to further examine various authenticity dimensions.

This study was designed to assess the efficacy of pedagogical and relationship-building strategies employed to foster student engagement and success. Also, it was meant to demonstrate the importance of faculty to engagement and success, and emphasize a faculty member's role in lessening the power divide that can exist in classrooms.

First, archival survey data were explored that provide a baseline for student perceptions of the interactions with faculty that have been shown to impact student engagement. Second, an in-depth description of the course taught by this author is provided, along with the relationship-building and pedagogical strategies employed to promote student engagement and learning. Finally, a mixed-methods approach was utilized to capture whether improved engagement and learning occurred. Both qualitative data, in the form of student opinionnaires, and quantitative data gathered from the institution's assessment instrument were reviewed.

A review of the qualitative survey data found that students believe faculty should be very intentional about building relationships with them. Student opinionnaires confirmed the efficacy of the relationship-building tactics employed by the instructor. Additionally, data analysis of the learning assessment tool yielded an 18% increase in performance, lending further support to the classroom strategies utilized during this time.

The results of this study add to the body of literature addressing the impact faculty have on student engagement. Additionally, these results can be used to help inform institutional strategies, such as faculty development seminars, to improve retention as a result of an engaged student body.

This paper aims to understand an emerging paradigm for business-to-business selling, Sales 2.0, which connects various enabling technologies within leading sales processes to drive improved business and relational outcomes. In the context of Sales 2.0, this paper addresses the need for buyer–seller dyadic sales research in the literature and highlights the importance of understanding buyer and seller perspectives regarding technology expectations and relationship-building performance.

This research utilizes a dyadic (salesperson–customer) data collection methodology, involving 74 matched salesperson and customer responses (37 dyads) to an online survey. Existing salesperson (self-report) measures of customer technology expectations and relationship-building performance with customers were utilized and adapted to provide dyadic measures to test for buyer–seller perceptual differences.

The dyadic data analysis supports the presence of significant perceptual differences between the salesperson and their customer, respective of customer technology expectations and relationship-building performance measures. In particular, the analysis reveals bidirectional perceptual differences for the two measures, whereas the salesperson underestimates the importance of their customer’s technology expectations, but overestimates their relational performance relative to their customers.

As technology continues to transform salesperson interactions with customers, the value of capturing a deeper understanding about those interactions increases. This study uses matched salesperson–customer dyads from a health-care sales organization to provide researchers and practitioners with insightful findings with respect to buyer–seller interactions and perceptual differences. Further, the research uniquely advances dyadic measures of customer technology expectations and relationship-building performance with customers to advance sales research in the context of Sales 2.0.

Electronic commerce has existed in the business‐to‐business marketplace since the 1970s, in forms such as electronic data interchange (EDI) and electronic funds transfer (EFT). With the emergence of the Internet, and the World Wide Web in particular, electronic commerce entered a new era which opened the door for an electronic business‐to‐consumer marketplace. Although the retail side of electronic commerce is still in its infancy, the Web medium offers great potential for building the customer‐base, promoting sales, and improving after‐sales service. Examines the concept of relationship marketing, which has caused a paradigm shift in business‐to‐business marketing during recent years. Extends the concepts of network marketing to the Web retail marketplace, and develops a market process model for Web retailing that outlines the stages of the relationship building process.