Loyalty has, over the past decade, become a crucial construct in marketing, and particularly in the burgeoning field of customer relationship management. This paper shows that customer loyalty can be explained to a substantial degree by customer satisfaction, trust, and communication, and shows the direct and indirect effects among those constructs and other constructs in an extension of the European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) model. Both ECSI model and the extended model are estimated with data from a survey carried out among customers of the banking sector. Within the limitations of the study, the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Alternative trade organizations (ATOs) based on philosophies of social justice and/or environmental well-being are establishing new channels of trade and marketing. Partisans promote ATOs as systems to transfer benefits from consumers in the wealthy northern hemisphere to producers in the poor southern hemisphere. The central public policy question is whether the well-being of poor agricultural producers in the southern hemisphere is actually being improved by fair-trade practices, or are consumers who buy products on this premise deceived? The research reported here partially answers the question whether participation in a fair-trade coffee marketing channel delivers benefits to smallscale producers in Latin America. The authors employ a survey methodology to compare TransFair USA (TF) cooperative participants and nonparticipating farmers in three countries on socioeconomic indicators of well-being. According to the analysis, the economic effects of fair-trade participation are unassailable; the effects on educational and health outcomes are uneven. However, TF cooperative participation positively affects educational attainment and the likelihood that a child is currently studying. The authors find positive health-related consequences of TF cooperative participation.

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to place grudge-holding as a theoretical construct, measure it, and empirically place it in a nomological net and, additionally to discuss the consequences of grudge-holding in this research. Design/methodology/approach-A 2 × 2 scenario-based experiment was performed using 320 subjects, approximately 80 people per condition. The size of the exit barrier (high/low) and the effectiveness of the service recovery (good/poor) were varied between each scenario to determine changes in grudge-holding. Findings-Some consequences of grudge-holding are retaliation desire and communication avoidance. Although trust was tested in this research, and is still an important relationship variable, the results show that loss of trust cannot explain these outcomes in the presence of grudge-holding. Research limitations/implications-The results are limited by the fact that they are based on scenarios rather than real events. As such, they should be interpreted with some caution, and confirmed by later studies using cross-sectional or natural experimental data. Practical implications-A grudge-holding item should be included in routine customer satisfaction surveys, especially since grudgeholders are less likely to initiate communication. If grudge-holding is suspected, this paper suggests steps that managers can take to defuse grudges. Originality/value-The results of this research confirm that grudge-holding is an important construct of service relationships. Understanding grudge-holding is important because it predicts the desire for retaliation and the desire to avoid communication, both of which can increase expenses for the firm, and eventually lead to a mass exit of customers.

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Does participation in Fair Trade coffee marketing deliver added value to small-scale

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This paper presents two modeling approaches that can be used to determine student class sizes for instructors who teach Web-based courses. The methodologies act to provide assurance to faculty that they will not have to compromise quality of instruction when teaching a Web course, nor have to sacrifice time away from research or service activities to develop and manage a Web course. These methodologies will also help department chairs plan student class size limitations to achieve “fairness” in asking instructors to adopt and teach Web courses at their universities. The models are applied to actual Web course experience at a university to demonstrate their practicality. Results of the application revealed faculty processing efficiencies that are inherent in offering Web-based courses and efficacy of the modeling approach.

This chapter presents two modeling approaches that can be used to determine student class sizes for instructors who teach Web-based courses. The methodologies act to provide assurance to faculty that they will not have to compromise quality of instruction when teaching a Web course, nor have to sacrifice time away from research or service activities to develop and manage a Web course. These methodologies will also help department chairs plan student class size limitations to achieve "fairness" in asking instructors to adopt and teach Web courses at their universities. The models are applied to actual Web course