Conceptualizing Relationship Maintenance Through The Relationship Life Cycle: Relationship Enhancement .........

Recent relationship marketing research has focused on developmental, path dependent nature of relationships where the rate and direction of change in the relationship is dynamic, arguing that relationships do not develop incrementally and consistently from one stage to another Instead, exchange events can change the course of a B2B relationship. Maintenance of customer relationships has been treated rather narrowly in the marketing literature so far. Relationship maintenance is a set of strategies to achieve enhancement, stabilization, or repair of the relationship with their customers based on the life cycle stage of the relationship. The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for strategic ‘maintenance’ of customer relationships in B2B settings from the perspective of seller firms. Drawing on the extant marketing and social psychology literature, we propose a framework that can help examine how seller firms can invest resources into tending to their customer relationships with strategic goals in mind. As determined by the Relationship Life Cycle research, relationships go through four phases: introduction, expansion, commitment and indifference phase. Building on these, we propose three categories of relational maintenance strategies- relationship enhancement, relationship stabilization and relationship repair Strategies. We offer a set of propositions predicting how the relationships can be maintained (enhanced, stabilized and repaired) in the different stages of the relationship life cycle. The proposed framework is in tune with the dynamic nature of buyer-seller relationships and hence the realities of the market place. The paper ends with a discussion of managerial implications.

Dynamics Of Service Design Thinking–The New ............

Design thinking and services possess a strong relationship. It is through the virtue of designing thinking a service design is formulated, and it is only design thinking that encapsulates the whole concept of competitive advantage. The content will initially touch the aspect of design thinking, conveying how it was gradually engulfed by the ethics of service to bloom as service design. For the matter, further refining will be facilitated by theory and practice to flash a light on the key terms, with attached perspectives to elaborate what service design is, and the way service design converges and diverges when passed through the mirror of trust and how design thinking can also help in gaining competitive advantage. The focus of this paper is on integrating all the points and forming an integrated solution on the way design thinking can be taken from the point where it could be used to plan a design to the point where it actually comes down from the whiteboard and is used to gain a sustainable advantage. The practical application of design thinking in prototyping is discussed with a fresh perspective, and a fairly new approach towards service design, including topics such as inclusiveness, trust, heuristics, and algorithms. All the discussed topics compare design thinking as a chain starting from a balance of deduction or induction, emphasizing the core, and how it is also understood as a thought that represents a cyclic form of Design thinking.

Digital Culture – Evolving Context, Enduring Concepts ..........

Grocery buying is one of the constant and most important phenomenons in every household. In the past few years this sector has shifted towards intangibility in the tangibility intangibility spectrum. This change has changed the mindset of the consumers and also the definition of grocery shopping. The simple act of getting groceries for the family has been transformed and the factors range from being demographic to global. The objectives of this research are to understand the consumer behavior towards grocery purchase of male and female respondents and to study the relationship between demographic factors and choice of retail outlet for grocery shopping. It also aims to find out those factors which play an important role in choosing a retail outlet. This research methodology comprised of cross-sectional research design and non-probabilistic sampling was done based on the basis of convenience and judgment. Primary research was conducted and a structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from a sample of 123 respondents from Kolkata. A cluster of factors were selected on the basis of literature review and among these factors cleanliness, quality of merchandise, distance, accessibility and availability of all items under one roof emerged as most important amidst the changing landscape of Indian consumers which in increasing income and global exposure. Monthly income and family size were seen to have positive correlation on supermarket buying and also occupation is seen to be correlated to choice of convenience stores. This is expected to provide valuable insight for marketers in framing their marketing strategy to connect with their target audience.

A Study On Grocery And Household Items ..........

This paper makes an attempt to develop three sentiment indices for the Indian stock market and also study the interrelationship between the developed sentiment indices with the Indian Stock Market as proxied by the BSE Sensex. Also, an attempt is madefor incorporating sentiment into the equation of FII flows and the stock returns framework analysed by various researchers, under the feedback trading literature. The findings suggest that sentiment causes net FII flows through the Indian stock market. Also, the results suggest a bi-directional causality running from stock market returns and sentiments.

Status Of Employee Engagement: Insights From .........

Employee engagement was widely studied across various countries, due to its positive effects. Past studies reflected that the level of engagement is continuously growing yet evolving across countries. It has been noted that employee engagement is often affected within countries by organisational culture. Therefore, the current study aims to expand the insights into the level of employee engagement in the Indian context. This paper endeavours to measure the level of employee engagement in banking sector. The article addressed various viewpoints on the conceptual and empirical research conducted on employee engagement in the Indian context. This primary research was conducted on banking employees. The research concludes that the engagement level of employees in Indian banking sector is satisfactory. There was also consideration of limitations and future directions of the study.

A Conceptual Study Of The Determinants ..........

Employees’ attitude and behaviour affects the performance of the organization immensely. Managers are keen to know about such behaviours that can be beneficial for the success of the organization. One such set of behaviours that can improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency is called organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) are, those set of behaviours that are performed voluntarily and engagement in such behaviours does not lead to any rewards or sanctions but; increases the overall efficiency of an organization. The interest in the domain of OCB has grown rapidly among scholars. Though there are ample studies on OCB and the factors that affect it, they have varied viewpoints. Moreover, there are various other factors that may have a significant effect on OCB but the literature on such factors is very scarce. There lacks a comprehensive study on OCB and its determinants. The present paper is an effort in this direction and makes a sincere attempt in providing a conceptual framework, so as to lay a firm ground for future researchers to study the various determinants of OCB and their potential impact.

Customer Usage Intention Of Online Pharmacies: A Developing ..........

The purpose of this research is to examine the adoption of online pharmacies in a developing country, India. To achieve this, a conceptual model was developed by extending Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to include Trust and Perceived Risk. The conceptual model was empirically tested usingStructural Equation Modelling (SEM) using AMOS software. Results revealed Trust and Perceived Usefulness as the key factors that influence consumers’ Attitude and Behavioral Intention towards online pharmacy adoption in India. The results also indicatedthat perceived risk was significantly associated with user’s attitude in negative relation, which indicates that risk concerns deter customers from purchasing healthcare products and services from online pharmacies. Understanding the factors that affect usage behavior, online pharmacists can develop marketing and supply chain strategies to ensure that people use this new service.

Editorial Advisory Board