Many companies have developed a green marketing strategy, aimed at promoting and selling green environmental products. While the majority of articles on this topic report on studies in a business-to-consumer setting, this research focusses on the impact of green marketing strategies on the satisfaction and loyalty of professional buyers in a business-to-business setting. Hypotheses were tested with survey data from 148 Dutch professional purchasers in the cleaning industry. The results emphasize the impact and importance of product quality, product price and corporate image. The most notable and strong impact on satisfaction and loyalty was found for the salesperson expertise.
Relationship management is becoming more important in direct marketing, since the emphasis in marketing is moving from a transaction focus to a relationship focus (e.g. Barlow, 1992; Cannon & Sheth, 1994;Webster, 1992). However, problems arise when measuring the strength of relationships between a company and its customers. Whereas relationship strength could be used as a segmentation variable. In measuring relationship strength, some studies concentrate on one indicator at a time, e.g. the length of the relationship. Other studies use a combination of indicators, like the R/F/Mformula in the direct marketing world (e.g. Baier, 1985). These indicators however, measure customer quality instead of relationship quality (which is used as a synonym of strength here) (Hoekstra, 1993;Wilson, 1990). The present study intended to measure relationship strength, of different consumer groups (i.c. current, former and potential members of a marketing club) with the same producer, through a relationship audit (Wilson, 1989). This audit depends on customer attitudes towards the relationships. These attitudes can not be derived from a database in which mainly behavioral data are kept. The results of the audit are related to behavioral data from the same study (that could be registrated in a database). Similarities between the two standards imply that the audit could be substituted by data from a (direct marketing) database. The relationship audit as well as the behavioral data show striking differences between different consumer groups. So these groups can be approached by an appropriate (direct marketing) strategy, based on differences in relationship strength. ABSTRACTRelationship management is becoming more important, also in direct marketing. Measuring the strength of relationships is relevant, since relationship strength can be used as a segmentation variable. However, in measuring relationship strength, mostly one or more behavioral indicators are used (e.g. the R/F/M-formula). So, these indicators measure customer quality instead of relationship quality, which is mainly determined by customer perceptions. This paper shows some preliminary results of a relationship audit, which depends on customer attitudes towards the relationship.
The aim of this study is to analyze, evaluate and validate the NSE (National Student Enquiry) as a service quality measure helping both higher education institutions (HEIs) and students in their decision making. Every year the Dutch foundation ‘Studiekeuze123’ sends out a survey (the NSE) to collect data on service quality regarding education at HEIs in the Netherlands. We used the 2019 NSE-data from the only e-learning university in the Netherlands, the Open Universiteit (OUNL), containing a sample of 1287 students. PLS-SEM was used to analyze a conceptual model in order to understand the service quality factors that promote students’ level of satisfaction and willingness to recommend the HEI. Overall, the findings reveal that the quality of the NSE is sufficient to be used for performance analysis. Nine out of twelve service components taken into account for the OUNL are found statistically significant affecting students’ satisfaction and willingness to recommend. The results help HEIs promoting and managing students’ perceptions of the quality of education and support students in their decision making process. Since many HEIs had to make a transition from onsite to online education within a short period of time, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, service quality became a major concern for HEIs. As online learning systems are expected to stay, analyzing the service quality of the OUNL as a reputed online HEI can help other HEIs getting their online learning systems on track.
Netherlands. His research includes buyer-supplier relationships, business marketing and purchasing (portfolio) management. He has published in international journals including Industrial Marketing Management , the Journal of Supply Chain Management and the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management .
Most studies on branding in higher education focus on external branding or image-building towards external stakeholders such as students. Internal branding is an underexplored topic, even though it should be considered as important as external branding. Internal branding is about achieving the necessary internal support for the external brand. Drawing on the theoretical concept of discursive legitimation, we explore the strategies that contribute to an internally supported new brand with student diversity as brand value. We conducted a case study of a Flemish university college that has (largely) succeeded in achieving internal support for its new external brand of student diversity. Analyzing the case from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis, we specifically zoomed in on the dialectical tensions underlying the discursive legitimation of this new brand. We identified three specific tensions, which illustrate the inherent complexity of the internal branding process: authorization as (dis)empowerment, normalization as (dis)empowerment and moralization as (dis)empowerment.
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