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Considers the quality of service between internal partners within a company looking at how this can influence performance and quality. Looks at the different ways of defining the internal customer and suggests that measurement is most effective when complex procedures are broken down. States that internal marketing is a critical issue facing marketing professions, human resources and other executives. Argues that if poor service is provided between employees it is unlikely that good service will ultimately be provided to the external customer. Invites further research in this area.

In this chapter, the authors undertake a systematic review of the literature to identify research exploring the use of new information and communication technologies (ICT). New ICT include the use of the Internet, mobile communications, and social technologies. The authors find that while interest in the area is increasing, especially among marketing and information systems scholars, there seems to be far less research interest among international business (IB) and strategy scholars. This chapter provides a summary of the research that has been done and discusses some potential future research areas that IB and strategy researchers might wish to pursue. Among these projects are investigating the use of ICT as a tool to aid the internationalization process, improve location choice and entry mode decisions, and identify and create a sustainable competitive advantage. The use of ICT in business is pervasive; As research scholars, we need to build these technologies into our theories and research to help managers determine what works and where certain technologies can help create better performing firms.

Defines polychronic time as the consumer’s ability to do a number of things at once and explains that it has been studied by researchers in an attempt to understand how individuals regard new products and services and their potential to save time or enhance polychronicity. Examines the literature on this subject with particular reference to Internet marketing. Generates a number of hypotheses for future research.

Until recently stakeholder communication has tended to be mostly unidirectional and simple. However, the advent of the Internet has brought unprecedented change. Stakeholder communication is no longer unidirectional, and as stakeholders increasingly communicate with each other this communication becomes infinitely more complex. Unfortunately many of the tools and models of PR were developed and refined in a pre‐Internet world. This paper introduces an integrated Internet stake‐holder communication matrix (I²SCM), and explains its use for the identification of issues that need to be managed with regard to the Internet and2 PR.

Excellence and quality would be regarded by most managers as worthy objectives. These managers would also, in all likelihood, agree on the importance of imbuing their organisation with a market orientation, and believe that these factors contribute to corporate performance. A sterner interpretation of this, however, would necessitate a more in‐depth understanding of these constructs. What is excellence? Is there a link between excellence and a market orientation? Is the market oriented service firm more concerned with understanding and managing customer expectations and delivering a reliable service? How do these variables affect corporate performance? While there are studies linking a number of these individual constructs to performance, (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991; Peters and Waterman, 1982; Narver and Slater, 1990; Narver, Park and Slater, 1992; Jaworski and Kohli, 1993) less work appears to have been done on investigating the more complex relationships between these constructs. The objectives of this article are to propose the existence or otherwise of relationships between excellence, market orientation, expectations management practices, “being reliable”, and corporate performance, and, to suggest ways in which these can be studied in service firms.