U. Zeynep Ata and Aysegul Toker
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of customer relationship management (CRM) practices on customer satisfaction and firm performance in business‐to‐business…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of customer relationship management (CRM) practices on customer satisfaction and firm performance in business‐to‐business (B2B) markets.
Design/methodology/approach
A model is developed and empirically tested through survey data obtained from 113 Turkish B2B companies.
Findings
The results indicate that CRM adoption has a significant positive effect on both customer satisfaction and organizational performance in B2B settings. CRM adoption is also found to affect organizational marketing performance significantly, but not financial performance. Additionally, the results reveal that enhanced customer satisfaction leads to better organizational performance in the B2B organization. Environmental dynamism and competition was found to have a negative moderating effect on the relationship between customer satisfaction and organizational performance.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to existing literature by incorporating customer‐facing CRM processes as a construct in the proposed model. The conclusions drawn have implications for both CRM and B2B research literature.
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Joon-Hee Oh and Judy Ma
Despite its significance in salespeople management, salespeople expectation management has received little attention in the literature, especially in the industrial marketing…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite its significance in salespeople management, salespeople expectation management has received little attention in the literature, especially in the industrial marketing literature. In response, the purpose of this study is to leverage the expectation confirmation theory to present a conceptual framework that provides an effective tool for salespeople expectation management.
Design/methodology/approach
This study first explores the application and strategic implications of expectation-confirmation theory in salespeople expectation management and theorizes that salespeople establish pre-expectations (expectations that are developed before joining the firm), experience multiple stages of the expectation-confirmation process throughout their sales career with a firm and – in each stage – establish either a longer-term commitment to or permanent disengagement from the firm.
Findings
A winning strategy for sales organizations is to recognize salespeople expectations and to meet or beat these expectations. Salespeople expectation management is particularly important in sales organizations that frequently find aligning sales force management strategies with organizational imperatives to be challenging.
Research limitations/implications
This study extends expectation-confirmation theory by presenting a conceptual framework that: identifies the existence of pre-expectations of salespeople and their outcomes; recognizes that the expectation-confirmation process occurs across multiple stages in the salespeople’s career cycle; recognizes that the level of expectations in previous stages of one’s career cycle influences the level of expectations in subsequent stages; and conceptualizes the non-linear relationship between expectations, tenure and turnover intentions.
Originality/value
The multiple expectation-confirmation framework can be used for effective salespeople expectation and turnover management and may also serve as a general model of organizational interventions.
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Saikat Das and H.M. Kamrul Hassan
This paper aims to assess the effect of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) , competitive advantage (CA) and customer relationship management (CRM) on organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess the effect of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) , competitive advantage (CA) and customer relationship management (CRM) on organizational performance (OP).
Design/methodology/approach
A self-administered questionnaire was employed in the present study as a research tool, consisting of 20 items. Information was gathered from 93 executives employed in the supply chain management (SCM) division of the multiple organizations in Chattogram, the commercial hub of Bangladesh and the findings of the research were evaluated using SMART PLS 3.0.
Findings
The findings supported the hypotheses that were formulated. The analysis shows that SSCM and CRM are significantly related to OP. The results show, however, a positive but insignificant relationship between CA and OP. In developing countries, SSCM and CA are more likely to be employed by businesses in order to accomplish OP. However, the relation between CRM and OP has been given comparatively less importance. It has been suggested that CRM, together with SSCM, should be considered in order to achieve OP.
Originality/value
Earlier study neglected to use the CRM in the measurement of OP along with CA and SSCM. This research seeks to emphasize the influence of CRM in the organization, together with SSCM. This lets companies understand the effect of SSCM and CRM in general since those companies must respond to consumer demands to product and industry developments and transfer appropriate resources to enhance manufacturing processes that combine technological and managerial efficiency.
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Silke Bambauer-Sachse and Thomas Helbling
Agile methods have considerably transformed project management. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of agile (as compared to plan-driven) methods on customer…
Abstract
Purpose
Agile methods have considerably transformed project management. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of agile (as compared to plan-driven) methods on customer satisfaction in the context of knowledge-intensive business services.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a survey examining the experiences of 361 customers with different outsourced software projects in Switzerland and a regression-based model to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The findings show that agile approaches can lead to higher customer satisfaction than plan-driven approaches, but the impact size is not as substantial as expected. The effect does not depend on the number of specification changes.
Practical implications
Managers must be aware that merely switching from a plan driven to an agile approach will not lead to substantial improvement in customer satisfaction. Satisfaction with the process is a more important driver of overall customer satisfaction than satisfaction with the service outcome. Thus, providers of knowledge-intensive services should train their employees in recognizing the importance of the cooperation process.
Originality/value
So far, the positive impact of agile methods is often only based on anecdotal evidence as well as on surveys examining the supplier perspective. This study provides support for the positive impact of agile methods on customer satisfaction, an important response variable from a marketing perspective, which has not been examined before in the context considered here.
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Ataollah Khanlari, Adnan Sözen, Faraz Afshari, Azim Doğuş Tuncer, Ümit Ağbulut and Zeynep Aytaç Yılmaz
Over the recent years, solar energy has received outstanding attention from researchers. Solar energy applications and related large-scale projects are increasing to meet growing…
Abstract
Purpose
Over the recent years, solar energy has received outstanding attention from researchers. Solar energy applications and related large-scale projects are increasing to meet growing global energy demand as an economical, non-polluting and renewable energy source. The purpose of this study is investigating different plenum and absorber configurations of solar air heating wall (SAHW) experimentally and numerically.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, various configurations of SAHW have been numerically simulated to determine the most effective design. According to the simulation results, two SAHWs with various plenum thicknesses have been fabricated and tested at different conditions.
Findings
Numerical simulation results indicated that parallel-flow SAHWs exhibited better performance in comparison with other placements of absorber plate. Regarding to the experimentally attained results, the highest thermal efficiency was reached to 80.51%. Also, the average deviation between experimentally and numerically obtained outlet temperature is 5.5%.
Originality/value
Considering the obtained results in the present study, designed SAHW has admissible efficiency to be used in various industrial and residential applications such as; air preheating, space heating and drying.