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This study aims to examine the impact of customer brand value dimensions on relationship marketing dimensions through consumer hope in the context of digital payment applications (apps) services. The study considers the role of consumer engagement using a moderated mediation, and applies customer perceived value, affect theory of social exchange and relationship marketing theories.

The study is based on data collected from 301 digital payment app users. Structural equation modeling results were analyzed using Smart PLS. The authors performed moderated mediation, with different levels of customer engagement as a moderating variable, using Model 8 of PROCESS. The authors considered customer perceived value dimensions, digital quality value, perceived value, hedonic value and social value as antecedents to consumer hope and explored the role of trust, commitment and continued usage as a consequence of consumer hope.

Three levels of perceived consumer value, digital quality, price value and social value, positively influenced consumer hope, which has positively influenced trust, commitment and continuance usage. Using moderated mediation analysis, consumer hope influenced continuance usage through trust at different levels of engagement, but consumer hope did not influence continuance usage through commitment at different levels of engagement.

The study highlights the role of consumer hope in linking customer value dimensions with relationship marketing dimensions. The study can guide managers to ensure continued usage of digital payment apps, which is a strategic objective. The results are relevant for the digital setting.

The study here responds to the view that the crucial problem in strategic management (research) is firm heterogeneity – why firms adopt different strategies and structures, why heterogeneity persists, and why competitors perform differently. The present study applies complexity theory tenets and a “neo-configurational perspective” of Misangyi et al. (2016) in proposing complex antecedent conditions affecting complex outcome conditions. Rather than examining variable directional relationships using null hypotheses statistical tests, the study examines case-based conditions using somewhat precise outcome tests (SPOT). The complex outcome conditions include firms with high financial performances in declining markets and firms with low financial performances in growing markets – the study focuses on seemingly paradoxical outcomes. The study here examines firm strategies and outcomes for separate samples of cross-sectional data of manufacturing firms with headquarters in one of two nations: Finland (n = 820) and Hungary (n = 300). The study includes examining the predictive validities of the models. The study contributes conceptual advances of complex firm orientation configurations and complex firm performance capabilities configurations as mediating conditions between firmographics, firm resources, and the two final complex outcome conditions (high performance in declining markets and low performance in growing markets). The study contributes by showing how fuzzy-logic computing with words (Zadeh, 1966) advances strategic management research toward achieving requisite variety to overcome the theory-analytic mismatch pervasive currently in the discipline (Fiss, 2007, 2011) – thus, this study is a useful step toward solving the crucial problem of how to explain firm heterogeneity.

A recent development in customer value research is building theory that can help the field go beyond understanding what customers currently value to exploring how customers' perceptions of value change. This paper seeks to extend this emerging theory of customer value change to a global context by conceptually exploring the role of national culture as a key moderator of this phenomenon.

The literature examining the role of national culture in business is reviewed for insights pertaining to buyers' tendencies for change in general and for clues suggesting how customers' embedded values in various cultural contexts might undergo value change in systematically different ways. Specifically, this paper employs Hofstede's cultural framework to explore how the lens of national culture might influence the value change process.

Based on this integrative review, several links between the cultural dimensions in Hofstede's framework and value change theory are found to be supported by the literature. These connections suggest a moderating role for national culture, given the tendency for cultural factors to shape buyers' interpretation of environmental change drivers and their resulting feelings of tension which research shows are closely associated with customers' desired value changes from suppliers.

This paper offers several theoretical propositions and conceptual models for future empirical validation. These new insights into an emerging theory of customer value change can provide the building‐blocks for a number of future research directions designed to help managers exercise strategic foresight for changing global markets.

The provision of value, as a marketing issue, is receiving increasing attention from managers and scholars. This attention, in combination with strong calls for better quantification and stronger measures in marketing, has lead to increased interest in the assessment, quantified where possible, of the provision of value through buyer–seller relationships. This paper identifies dimensions of value provision through relationships in business markets with specific emphasis on the intangible aspects of value, which are important to long-term competitive advantage. The provision of value to the seller is the prime focus in this paper. The paper discusses the meaning of both tangible and intangible relationship value and the interplay between them and notes the importance of assessing the intangible part of the value, particularly the part which derives from the human aspects of the relationship. Despite their importance, the human aspects of relationships and their contribution to value is a sparse topic among researchers. The paper compares and evaluates potentially useful relationship and value conceptualizations. The paper discusses studies of relationship value and then outlines the results of a recent line of empirical research into the provision of value by a buyer to a seller that utilizes a framework synthesized from the intellectual capital literature. This recent research conceptualizes the potential for a seller's relationship with a buyer to provide intangible value to the seller in terms of, first, the resources available in the buyer and second, the capabilities of the buyer's boundary personnel to aid in facilitating the flow of those resources to the seller. The paper also includes the softer human aspects in the dimensions of value. These latter aspects are important to a full assessment of value. The paper concludes with a discussion of aspects of intangible relationship value that need further elucidation and will thus provide opportunities for future research.

Banks and corporate customers have realized that bank-corporate relationship is important but little is known about why and how banks establish and exploit relationships. No comprehensive theory has explained relationship banking and in order to get a better understanding the purpose of this paper is to investigate why and how banks and companies communicate in order to create value.

This study adopts a qualitative methodology and a grounded theory approach was adopted. In total, 34 in-depth interviews were conducted with banks and 15 with corporate managers. Grounded theory models are developed based on interview data.

It was found that the nature of bank-corporate relationship is long term. The relationship is based on trust-based personal communications between banks and corporate customers. Macro conditions including the advances in technology, financial regulation and business globalization were considered when the case banks adopted relationship banking. Some intervening conditions including customer information and knowledge, customer needs and customer confidence also influence the development of relationship banking. The interviewees perceived that the case banks gained benefits including better customer retention economy, risk management efficiency and greater effectiveness in maintaining sustainable profitability. The corporate customers gained benefits including fund availability, product availability, service quality, help in-time and business platform.

This study derives concepts and categories from primary data and identifies relationships among these theoretical elements. This investigation provides a comprehensive picture of relationship banking and supplies some theoretical and practical implications. Moreover, a value creation and allocation theory of the bank is developed.

The objective of the paper is to explore the relationship among perceived quality value, hedonic value, social value, price value, customer engagement and customer-based brand equity using stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R), customer engagement and customer-perceived value theories for digital payment apps. In addition, the study examines the mediating role of customer engagement between customer value dimensions and customer-based brand equity and analyzes the moderating role of age.

Partial least squares-based structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses through a sample of 316 respondents who used digital payment apps.

The findings indicate that customer engagement mediates the relationship between customer value dimensions and customer-based brand equity. Age does not moderate the relationship between customer value dimensions and customer engagement. The study confirmed the pronounced effect of specific paths for various age groups.

This study contributes novel insight to S-O-R, customer engagement, and customer value research.

This paper aims to develop a methodology for lean implementation that reduces the risk of damaging a company's key resources and abilities through the application of core competence theory.

Academic literature provided background conceptual understanding of lean and core competence theory for an industrial working party of domain experts from 15 major aerospace companies in the UK to develop a methodology for lean implementation that would not damage firm's competences. The methodology was trailed through cooperative inquiry in a business unit of a leading global aerospace company using a case study approach.

An accessible definition of core competence that captures academic theory was proposed through an industrial working group. Further a methodology for lean implementation, drawing upon core competence theories was developed. The method comprised four tools: market analysis, the visible value stream, customer value analysis, and financial modelling. Tools drew upon established practice and their joint application is intended to safeguard a company's key resources and capabilities from loss or impact during lean implementations. Application in a single case study company and the effects observed over a number of years indicated the methodology, though developmental, was capable of significant positive effects.

The paper provides a practical definition of core competence and application of theory within a lean implementation, trailed and validated in an industrial setting. Competence theory has previously been described as “lack‐lustre” due to the abstract nature of the ideas.

Customer value co-creation behavior is promising but undertheorized. To bridge this gap, this study examines the viability of a social cognitive theory positing that customers' value co-creation behavior is shaped by their co-creation experience, self-efficacy, and engagement.

Using healthcare as a case, a stratified random sample comprising 600 patients from 40 hospitals across eight metropolitan cities in an emerging economy was acquired and analyzed using co-variance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM).

Customers' co-creation experience has a positive impact on their co-creation self-efficacy, co-creation engagement, and value co-creation behavior. While co-creation self-efficacy and engagement have no direct influence on value co-creation behavior, they do serve as mediators between co-creation experience and value co-creation behavior, suggesting that when customers are provided with a co-creation experience, it enhances their co-creation self-efficacy and engagement, ultimately fostering value co-creation behavior.

A theory of customer value co-creation behavior is established.

User value co-creation behaviors are crucial for the sustainable development of Virtual Brand Communities. This research, grounded in social exchange theory, investigates the impact of community satisfaction and identification on customer value co-creation behaviors and further explores how the reciprocity norm moderates these relationships.

Our research data were collected from users across multiple brand communities, totaling 481 survey responses. Structural equation modeling was performed to test the research hypotheses.

These results provide in-depth insights into the nexus between user-community relationships and customer value co-creation behaviors. While community satisfaction and identification positively influence co-creation, their effects vary across different value co-creation behaviors. Notably, the reciprocity norm within the community dampens the relationship between community satisfaction and value co-creation behaviors.

Unlike previous studies focusing on customer value co-creation behaviors, our research emphasizes social exchange, unveiling the mechanisms behind customer value co-creation. Our findings not only enrich the body of knowledge on customer value co-creation but also deepen our understanding of online collective behavior and knowledge sharing, offering valuable insights for the development of virtual communities.

Based on customer value-based and social exchange theories, the purpose of this paper is to hypothesize and examine the relationships between salespeople entrepreneurial behaviors (innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking) and customer trust in, satisfaction with and commitment to the salespeople.

The influences of salespeople’s entrepreneurial behaviors on customer trust in, satisfaction with, and commitment to salespeople were examined utilizing a structural equations model with a sample drawn from the newspaper industry.

As predicted salespeople entrepreneurial behaviors (treated as a higher order factor) significantly and positively influence customer trust in, satisfaction with, and commitment to the salespeople.

This study confirms innovative, proactive, and risk-taking practices are useful in fostering customer trust, satisfaction, and commitment in the domain of personal selling. The key limitations are the small sample size, the use of a single company, and the omission of other potential outcomes.

Entrepreneurial behaviors/activities such as, innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking are worthy undertakings for salespeople. Considering these traits in salespeople hiring and/or fostering them in salespeople training should be worth pursuing.

By improving the quality of exchanges through salespeople’s entrepreneurial behaviors and customer-salespeople relationship quality, social exchanges, and in turn social welfare are promoted.

As per the literature search, this is the first study linking salespeople’s entrepreneurial behaviors and customer-salespeople relationship quality represented by trust in, satisfaction with, and commitment to salespeople drawing insights from customer value-based and social exchange theories.