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This study employs a multi-method approach to investigate how perceived relationship marketing investment affects perceived relationship value and consumer gratitude, influencing consumer involvement, word-of-mouth intentions, and long-term relationships across three retail consumer types.

The study analyses a model involving 542 consumers, employing structural equation modeling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to identify distinctive factor configurations across public, semi-public, and private retail organizations.

A retailer’s investment in relationship marketing significantly enhances relationship value and consumer gratitude, leading to increased engagement and word-of-mouth intentions. Perceived benevolence moderates the effect of relationship marketing on gratitude. However, gratitude alone does not ensure long-term relationships. Using fsQCA, we identify four distinct consumer configurations, providing nuanced insights.

Retail organizations broaden relationship marketing strategies to boost perceived value and elicit consumer gratitude, influencing consumer performance outcomes.

Retail organizations should broaden relationship marketing strategies to boost perceived value and elicit consumer gratitude, influencing consumer performance outcomes.

Managers should develop strategies that lead to consumer gratitude toward the firm, such as journey mapping can help visualize retail delivery. Grateful consumers may contribute to firms’ profitability by influencing current and potential consumers in their social networks and communicating their expertise through review/feedback for improvement. Therefore, various strategies are needed to stimulate positive comments from grateful consumers about the firm’s excellent performance.

This study builds on Lawler’s affect theory, highlighting how relationship value and consumer gratitude profoundly influence exchange process outcomes. It introduces new psychological mechanisms to explain the impact of perceived relationship marketing investment on performance outcomes. Integrating these elements provides a comprehensive understanding of retailer–consumer dynamics, revealing how emotional and psychological factors shape marketing strategies and business performance. This contribution enriches theoretical frameworks and offers practical insights for enhancing relationship marketing practices.

This study investigates the mediating role of parent−adolescent relationships in the impact of family emotional expressiveness on adolescent psychological adjustment. This study aims to elucidate the mechanisms by which positive family dynamics and strong parent−child bonds influence adolescents' psychological resilience and well-being.

The study involved 463 middle school students (241 boys and 222 girls) from Chlef, Algeria. Data was collected using the self-expressiveness in the family questionnaire (SEFQ), the parent−adolescent relationship scale (PARS) and the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ). Descriptive statistics, correlations and mediation analysis were performed to examine the relationships among family emotional expressiveness, parent−adolescent relationships and psychological adjustment.

The results reveal moderate positive correlations among family emotional expressiveness, parent−adolescent relationships and psychological adjustment. Mediation analysis indicates that parent−adolescent relationships partially mediate the effects of family emotional expressiveness on psychological outcomes, with both direct and indirect effects being statistically significant.

This study contributes to the field of mental health by exploring the nuanced interplay between family dynamics, parent−adolescent relationships and psychological adjustment within the Algerian cultural context. While the quantitative nature of the study limits the depth of contextual insights, the findings underscore the importance of considering family emotional expressiveness and the quality of parent−adolescent relationships in interventions aimed at promoting adolescent psychological well-being. The study highlights the partial mediating role of parent−adolescent relationships, indicating that other factors may also influence the association between family expressiveness and adolescent adjustment. This emphasizes the need for a comprehensive, culturally-sensitive approach that addresses various influences on adolescent development. It should be noted that while the family unit and parenting styles have been extensively researched, this study offers a fresh perspective by focusing on these dynamics within a specific cultural setting.

This study explores the influence of organizational structure on relationship formation and tacit knowledge sharing within a family business context.

Utilizing a single case study approach, data were collected through interviews and questionnaires from 12 participants at a family-owned advertising and communication firm in Beirut, Lebanon.

The research highlights the critical role of organizational structure in enhancing organizational effectiveness through knowledge transfer. It underscores how both intraorganizational and interorganizational ties influence knowledge sharing processes and demonstrates the varying impacts of tie strength on tacit knowledge distribution.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining the interdependence between organizational structure, tacit knowledge transfer and tie strength in family businesses. By analyzing these elements across internal and external boundaries, the study offers a fresh perspective on network dynamics. The research highlights that traditional definitions of network ties may not fully capture the unique environment of family firms, where structural nuances impact knowledge sharing and performance. Practically, the findings provide actionable insights for managers to design organizational structures that optimize tacit knowledge flow, fostering innovation and competitiveness. This work challenges existing frameworks and offers guidance for improving knowledge management in family businesses, supporting sustainable growth and success.

This paper aims to explore the role of heuristics in the reassessment of relationship events and how it influences perceptions of commitment, fairness and relationship value. It answers the question of how heuristics interrelate with decision-makers’ evolving interpretations of commitment, fairness and relationship value in a specific buyer-supplier relationship.

This paper presents data from a longitudinal study of an evolving buyer–supplier relationship involving a multinational supplier of fast-moving consumer goods and a medium-sized and highly specialized supplier. It analyzes qualitative data about the use of heuristics in buyer–supplier relationships, and it is based on evidence collected from interviews, presentations, meetings and secondary data.

This paper shows that a buyer’s unexpected behavior can lead to a reassessment of commitment, fairness and relationship value. Heuristics can delay relationship reassessments, however. The case shows that heuristics have a preserving quality and that the effect of transformative events only slowly changes the perception of the value of the relationship. In this change process, the link between commitment, perceived fairness and heuristics is crucial.

This paper contributes to research on the relationship between buyer–supplier relationships and heuristics. In particular, the paper contributes to the understanding of how relational events in a buyer-supplier relationship change the commitment and perception of fairness, and how heuristics change accordingly. On a more overarching level, the study contributes to our understanding of business relationship dynamics.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a typology of heuristics in business relationships. We distinguish between four categories: (1) general heuristics used in the context of a business relationship but that may also (and are often) used in other contexts; (2) relational context heuristics that are typically used in a relational context; (3) relational information heuristics that rely on relational information and (4) genuine relational heuristics that use relational information and are applied in relational contexts.

We draw on existing literature on heuristics and business relationships to inform our conceptual paper.

We apply this typology and discuss specific heuristics that fall under the different categories of our typology. These include word-of-mouth, tit-for-tat, imitation, friendliness, recognition and trust.

We contribute to the heuristics literature by providing a novel typology of heuristics in business relationships. Emphasizing the interdependence between heuristics and business relationships, we identify genuine relational heuristics that capture the bidirectional relationships between business relationships and heuristics. Second, we contribute to the business relationships literature by providing a conceptual framework for understanding the types of heuristics managers use in business relationships and by discussing examples of specific heuristics and how they are applied in relational contexts.

We contribute to practice by providing a simple framework for making sense out of the “universe” of heuristics for business relationships.

Our paper provides a novel typology for understanding heuristics in business relationships.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how social capital resources (SCRs), proactive personality and perceived organizational support (POS) influence work engagement during the organizational socialization process through the lens of self-determination theory (SDT).

Drawing upon a sample of newly hired employees from diverse industries, data was collected using self-report measures. A total of 619 respondents’ data were qualified for analysis. Regression analysis and structural equation modeling with the bootstrap method were used for hypothesis testing.

Results indicate that newcomers who used effective organizational socialization tactics (OSTs) experienced higher levels of work engagement. Moreover, SCRs were crucial in shaping the relationship between OSTs and work engagement. Specifically, newcomers with greater SCRs exhibited increased work engagement, enhancing effective OSTs’ positive impact. Furthermore, proactive personality and POS traits moderate the relationship between SCRs and work engagement. Newcomers with a proactive personality were more likely to leverage their SCRs, leading to higher work engagement effectively.

This study underscores the importance of promoting social connections, organizational support, proactivity and positive relationships to enhance employee work engagement and overall well-being in the Pakistani context.

This study examines how SCRs, proactive personality and POS influence work engagement during organizational socialization, a novel area in newcomer adjustment. It highlights the importance of strategic socialization and targeted onboarding programs that enhance SCRs and proactive personalities. By integrating SDT with the cultural context of Pakistani organizations, it offers unique insights for improving newcomer adjustment and engagement.

This study examines the impact of inter-organisational justice (i.e. distributive, procedural and interactional) in the buyer–supplier relationship on supply risk and, in turn, on a firm’s marketing and financial performance.

A structured survey was administered both online and in-person to Jordan-based manufacturing companies. The 137 responses received were analysed using partial least structural equation modelling.

The study found that while establishing both procedural and interactional justice in the relationship has a negative impact on supply risk, promoting distributive justice, surprisingly, has no impact. Moreover, supply risk was found to be detrimental to the firm’s marketing and financial performance.

This study considers only the direct role of inter-organisational justice in reducing supply risk. Future research could enhance our understanding of this role by exploring the underlying mechanisms and conditions that could govern it.

Managers can alleviate supply risk by ensuring procedural and interactional justice in the relationship through involving suppliers in the decision-making processes, consistently adhering to established procedures and communicating transparent and ample information.

Addressing supply risk can help in maintaining community resilience and economic stability.

The study highlights inter-organisational justice as a new approach to mitigating supply risk. Moreover, by examining how supply risk can affect a firm’s marketing performance, it also highlights a new implication of supply risk. Furthermore, by exclusively examining the impact of supply risk on a firm’s financial performance, the study provides a more nuanced interpretation of the effect of supply risk and how it can be reduced.

With the continuous deepening of China's mixed-ownership reform, the participants in the reform have gradually expanded from state-owned enterprises to private enterprises. Whether state-owned equity participation in private enterprises can facilitate the development of environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in private enterprises is a question that needs urgent examination. This study aims to investigate the impact of state-owned equity participation on the ESG performance of private enterprises.

Using Chinese listed companies as the research sample, this study uses econometric methods such as multiple regression to analyze the relationship between state-owned equity and the ESG performance of private enterprises. Additionally, it explores the underlying mechanisms and influencing factors of this relationship.

There is a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between state-owned equity and the ESG performance of private enterprises. Mechanism analysis reveals that resource effects and governance effects play a mediating role in this nonlinear relationship. Furthermore, the authors find that environmental regulation and managers' attention to the environment positively moderate the relationship between state-owned equity participation and ESG performance.

A reasonable equity structure is crucial for enhancing corporate ESG performance. Moderate state-owned equity participation helps to leverage resource integration and governance advantages, which will assist private enterprises in maximizing ESG performance and achieving sustainable development.

In advancing the process of mixed-ownership reform, the government should maintain an appropriate proportion of state-owned equity to avoid excessive intervention in enterprise decision-making. At the same time, it should ensure that enterprises can genuinely undertake their social and environmental responsibilities while pursuing economic benefits. This is of great significance for promoting sustainable economic and social development.

This study integrates state-owned equity, ESG and nonlinear relationships into a single research framework. It explores the internal mechanisms and influencing factors of their relationship, overcoming the limitations of previous studies and provides a new perspective for understanding the impact of state-owned equity on corporate ESG performance.

The research applied service-dominant logic of marketing theory, a customer-centered and relational that principally grounded in service relationships and actor networks. In actor networks, salespeople provide their skills and knowledge, such as expertise, service quality, ethics and shared value to cocreate value for buyers. Therefore, this study explores the attributes of salespeople that influence the quality of the relationship (trust and satisfaction) and, as a result, loyalty in the context of the business-to-business (B2B) relationship in the Taiwan market.

A causal relationship and survey research design are applied. The study collected 266 valid responses from B2B account managers representing various companies and industries. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to test the hypotheses.

The results showed that salespeople’s expertise demonstrated the most significant influence on both trust and satisfaction, followed by ethics, service quality and share value, in a descending order of impact. Consequently, trust and satisfaction had a significant impact on customer loyalty.

The four attributes of salespeople play a pivotal role in establishing lasting relationships and maximizing the customer lifetime value. To achieve long-term success in customer interactions and relationships, a well-rounded salesperson should diligently strive to excel in all these attributes.

The novelty and contribution of this study are twofold. First, investigating the quality of the relationship in the context of Taiwanese manufacturers in a B2B setting is still rare, and this is the study first to explore the Taiwanese B2B relationship with its global customers. As Taiwanese manufacturers play a pivotal role in the global supply chain, the research findings have symbolic meaning and practical implications for global business partners. Second, drawing from service-dominant logic theory, this research takes an integrative view by examining the attributes (expertise, service quality, shared value and ethics) that influence and establish a quality trusting relationship and consumer loyalty in the B2B context.

This paper aims to address third actor introductions to interaction episodes aiming at fast-forwarding the continuous development of business relationships of new firms.

The study is qualitative, collecting data from 30 interviews from 28 informants associated with creation of new ventures and business network development in the context of a novel type of third actor called venture builder. Venture builders are privately owned organizations devoted to new firm creation in a factory-like mode, collaborating with individual entrepreneurs.

The findings suggest that interaction episodes, central to the development of new relationships, may be triggered by introductions managed by third actors using different types of involvement depending on the location and focus of the potential relationship. A framework is presented including four types of introductions to interaction episodes, aiming at saving time by removing the perceived distance between new firms and their counterparts in the initiation of business relationships. The framework describes four types of introductions of interaction episodes: Managed, Advised, Facilitated and Monitored.

Triggers and introductions of interaction episodes for new firms has previously been sparsely addressed. This paper presents how third actor involvement, by the introductions of interaction episodes with internal and external counterparts is managed with an aim of fast-forwarding relationship development.