Research on the effects of personalized messages on consumers' behavioral responses has yielded mixed findings. We explore how e-mail personalization influences click-through intentions. Our results suggest that consumers experience personalization reactance in response to highly personalized messages when the fit between the offer in the message and consumers' personal characteristics is not explicitly justified by firms. Consequently, consumers are less willing to respond favorably to the offer. Results of two studies suggest that this effect primarily emerges for consumers who perceive the utility of the service to be relatively low. For those consumers with higher perceived utility, justification of personalization is less important because highly personalized messages are less likely to elicit reactance.

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Learning about customers takes place through relevant dialogues with those customers, also known as customer relationship management (CRM). As relationships develop, information about the customer is gathered in the firm's customer information systems (CIS): the content, processes, and assets associated with gathering and moving customer information throughout the firm. This research develops a measure of CIS management capabilities based on learning organization theory and measured by the ability to get, store, move, and use information throughout the business unit. This measure is then used to analyze customer learning processes and associated performance in the context of marketing strategic decision making.This study of 209 business services firms finds that generic marketing strategy positioning (low-cost and differentiation) and the marketing tactics of personalization and customization are related to CIS development. Customer information systems development in turn is associated with higher levels of customer-based performance, which in turn is associated with increased business growth.Since the strongest association with customer-based performance is strategy selection, the long-term benefits of the knowledge gained from the CIS may be in the ability to assist in measuring customer-based performance, rather than in the ability to immediately contribute to performance. Finally, for these firms, customization and personalization are not directly associated with performance and thus may not be necessary to support every firm's marketing strategy. A Model for Understanding Customer Information Systems (CIS)Implementing database and software systems for customer information management can be costly, difficult, and time-consuming. Research is needed to understand whether and how managing customer information in a particular strategic marketing context provides a sustainable competitive advantage. Figure 1 presents the model that is tested empirically. We first develop a set of antecedents and consequences from relevant theory, then integrate these concepts into empirically testable hypotheses. This problem requires integrating theory from several literatures, including organizational learning, information technology, strategy, and marketing communications.The first literature stream considered is organizational learning, which is relevant for two reasons. Research shows that organizations that stress learning activities indeed are able to learn (Garvin, 1993;Hult et al., 2000). Since customer information management is predicated on the concept of the "learning relationship" between the firm and the customer, learning organization theory provides a way to understand how to evaluate customer information management practices.