Modelling Relationship Quality in a Business-to-Business Marketing Context: The Jordanian Banks and their Online SME Customers.

摘要

This study provides an understanding on how Relationship Quality is conceptualised inudbusiness-to-business marketing relationships. It investigates the relationships ofudJordanian Banks with their small and medium sized enterprise (SMEs) customers inudterms of Commitment, Satisfaction, Trust, Communication, Transparency,udUnderstanding, and Cooperation. It examines the antecedents and outcomes of theudquality of corporate customer relationships by developing a conceptual model whichudempirically tests this relationship.udThis research builds and validates a research model based on the literature survey anduduses a mixed methods approach. Qualitative data were gathered through in-depthudinterviews to achieve the goal of refining the initial research model. The second stage isuda quantitative empirical study that uses a questionnaire and tests the empirical modeludgenerated in the first stage. This integration of methods provides a more complete viewudof this emerging area of marketing theory.udUsing Structural Equation Modelling; research findings support the use of a secondorderudrelationship quality construct consisting of Trust, Commitment, and Satisfactionudas a direct outcome of a relationship and is named ¿Attitudinal Loyalty¿. Antecedentsudincluding; Transparency, Communication, Understanding and Cooperation were foundudto have a positive impact on relational outcome in a business-to-business context inudJordan. The importance of Transparency emerged as one of the most significantuddeterminants of Relationship Quality, which is considered to be a new finding and notudcommon among previous studies. Communication appears to make the biggestudcontribution overall and have direct and indirect relationships with other variables. It isudtherefore a major source of success in a business relationship.udThis research has several implications for the theory and practice. An important issue isudthe affects on change management. It requires the establishment of businessudcommunications to strengthen existing relationships and to form new ones. This impliesuddeveloping an interactive approach with other parties. This study gives the bankingudindustry an insight for developing their marketing strategy. It also provides a tool toudassess the portfolio of relationships, which helps in targeting specific customers.udFurthermore, Transparency in the flow of information imposes cultural change.udStudying the Jordanian market can help to provide an insight into an emergingudeconomy. Several qualitative findings showed that the relationship between banks andudtheir small and medium enterprises is interesting. All this enriches and adds to theudoriginality of this work and contributes to existing theory by investigating howudrelationships between partners can be enhanced.