Journal of Services Marketing: Volume 31 Issue 1

Guest editorial: relationship marketing – past, present and future

Johanna Gummerus, Catharina von Koskull, Christian Kowalkowski

In a time when relationships have been recognized as an integral part of contemporary marketing theory and practice, what role can the sub-discipline of relationship marketing…

Revitalizing relationship marketing

Jagdish Sheth

The aim of this paper is to review the forces that led to the rise of relationship marketing (RM) and to provide suggestions for how it can overcome its midlife crisis and be…

Relationship marketing: looking backwards towards the future

Adrian Payne, Pennie Frow

This paper aims to review the growth and development of the field of relationship marketing and, through a consideration of this body of work, identifies key research priorities…

From relationship marketing to total relationship marketing and beyond

Evert Gummesson

This paper aims to emphasize the need for generation of more general, abstract and grand theory in marketing by synthesizing relationship marketing and other developments and to…

Enhancing theory development in the domain of relationship marketing: how to avoid the danger of getting stuck in the middle

Roderick J. Brodie

This study aims to explore how relationship marketing can sustain the position as a major domain for academic research and avoid premature stagnation.

“Running is my boyfriend”: consumers’ relationships with activities

Karl-Jacob Mickelsson

The paper aims to introduce the idea that consumers have relationships with their own recurring activities. Instead of the usual notion of investigating the relationships between…

Examining the antecedents and consequences of gratitude

Syed Fazal E. Hasan, Gary Mortimer, Ian N. Lings, Larry Neale

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…

Why are customers loyal in sharing-economy services? A relational benefits perspective

Shuai Yang, Yiping Song, Sixing Chen, Xin Xia

This study aims to provide a taxonomy of relational benefits that drive customer loyalty in sharing-economy services, assess the relative strengths of these relational benefits in…

The importance of CSR in forming customer–company identification and long-term loyalty

Min-Hsin Huang, Zhao-Hong Cheng, I-Chun Chen

Promoting customer–company identification (CCI) has become a crucial relationship marketing strategy for service firms. The purpose of this study is to examine how customers’…

Humans’ relationship to nature – framing sustainable marketing

Helge Löbler

Although humans are part of nature, the relationship between humans and nature is not well understood, neither in sustainable marketing nor in relationship marketing. Nature is…