This paper will present and discuss the findings of research that explored the marketing practices of small professional service firms. These findings demonstrate that in seeking to improve customer service and satisfaction, the marketing activities practiced by such firms differ from those of their larger counterparts. Moreover, they suggest that existing relationship marketing theories are in...

A strategic approach to how small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) use their marketing networks during a time of change in their operating context is the focus of this article. SME networking is analysed using the structural, relational and usage dimensions associated with network frameworks. Specifically, the paper examines marketing network processes (MNPs) that are investigated through th...

Although scholars and business leaders generally expect the small fashion boutique retail format to phase out in China after the China joined the WTO, it has so far remained very resilient under current retail changes. This essay investigates the characteristics of the small fashion boutique format and explicates why small fashion boutiques remain to have certain advantages over larger retail f...

Although their importance in service operations is widely acknowledged in services marketing literature, the place and role of customers in organizational theories remain unclear. In particular, the way customers may influence the firm’s intra-organizational coordination has received little attention. By combining services marketing and intra-organizational coordination theories, this paper con...

To understand the mechanisms that underlie marketing communication support for product launches, the authors conduct an empirical study and propose a conceptual framework that depicts the relationships between informational/transformational or elaborational/relational messages and their effectiveness. The hypothesized message–communication and message–sales effect links are moderated by three c...

This paper explores the emergence of sponsorship-linked events as a strategy to leverage relational outcomes through sponsorship investment. The growing use of sponsorship-linked events reinforces the need to understand the potential of such leverage strategies, thus the findings contribute to the body of literature on effective sponsorship practices. Findings from semi-structured interviews wi...

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Marketing-finance interface Investor relations Role of marketing Market-based assets This paper develops an interdisciplinary conceptual framework demonstrating the role of marketing in managing investor relationships. The framework illustrates how companies can turn investor relationships into market-based assets by analyzing and managing them from a relationshi...

the use of the internet has increased in recent years remarkably. companies employ the world wide web (www) to gather, disseminate and interchange information with actual and potential customers, and then internet technology seems to be served and applied as a strategic tool and affects strategies and practices of a firm such as porter's competitive strategies. many research findings confi...