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Purpose Despite the positive effects of customer capital (CC), questions remain over how managers enable CC growth by applying their skills and capabilities through managerial actions and strategies, such as developing information technology (IT) capability, fostering relationship learning (RL) activities and developing green innovation performance (GIP) with clients. These questions are especially pertinent in small and medium-sized enterprises and automotive industry companies that operate through supply chains, where knowledge about customers is likely to result from personal contact between customers and organisational members. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which these managerial actions were more likely to lead to the successful creation of CC. Design/methodology/approach Using the partial least squares technique, this paper studies how these three managerial actions impact on CC. To do so, data from 140 companies in the Spanish automotive components manufacturing sector have been used. Findings The findings support the influence of RL on both GIP and CC. RL is a key managerial action in exploiting customer information and knowledge advantages, enabling firms to structure and reconfigure resources to produce new ways to compete and to satisfy stakeholders. In addition, results show that GIP is a determinant of CC because of its contribution to achieving sustainable competitive advantage, with GIP performing a mediating role in the relationship between RL and CC. A second contribution shows that IT is not in itself able to yield a competitive advantage, thereby validating the existence of complementary or co-focused strategic assets such as RL and GIP, which enhance IT’s influence on CC. Research limitations/implications The authors were unable to explore the subtleties of the processes over time. Future research should include a longitudinal study. Practical implications This study considers RL an essential factor in achieving both GIP and CC. Consequently, managers should seek to build strong RL cultures. In addition, this study shows that IT is not in itself able to yield a competitive advantage, thereby validating the existence of complementary or co-focused strategic assets such as RL and GIP. Originality/value No study has ever examined these three antecedent variables (IT, RL and GIP) together, with the aim to examine their effects on CC.

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A number of studies have placed at the forefront variables that predict the loyalty of clients in fitness centres. In fact, no study has analysed the differences between these variables according to business models. The objective of this study was to analyse the relationship between quality, value, satisfaction and the future intentions of clients of public and private low-cost fitness centres and their differences. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 1805 fitness centre clients. A confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group analysis was performed to test the difference between two invariance models. The findings indicate a greater weight in facilities and employees of the quality perceived from private low-cost fitness centres and a greater weight in programmes from public fitness centres. Furthermore, the relationship between the variables' overall quality, perceived value, satisfaction and future intentions had a greater influence in private low-cost fitness centres than in public centres.

PurposeThis research aims to understand the relationship among Intellectual Capital (IC), Service Dominant Orientation (SD-Orientation) and firms performance.Design/methodology/approachA model conceptualizing the relationship among the three constructs was tested through structural equation modelling on a sample of 101 firms from SABI Spanish database.FindingsThe results confirm the influence of IC, in all of its dimensions, on SD-Orientation and of SD-orientation on performance. Furthermore, the results show that SD- Orientation fully mediates the relationship between IC and performance, except for relational capital that by itself also directly influences financial performance.Research limitations/implicationsData is limited to a sample of only one country and 101 services firms. Therefore, future studies should be carried out with samples from other countries.Practical implicationsThe main results show HC, relational capital and SC are a great influence and antecedent on SD-Orientation, therefore, as an implication, firms need to take care of the several components (human, structural and social) of IC in order to become more service oriented, something that will allow them to achieve a better performance.Originality/valueUntil know there was no other study testing the influence of IC on SD-Orientation, therefore this study contributes to understand SD-orientation and the necessary resources to operationalize it, including the links to financial performance.