Guanxi, a social exchange mechanism built on mutual favors, is an integral part of Chinese culture and a necessary relationship management tool for businesses operating in the People's Republic of China (PRC). This paper uses the cognition-affect-conation trajectory to illustrate the subtle differences between Guanxi approach and the conventional relationship marketing approaches on customer loyalty and word-of-mouth intentions. This process is mediated by calculative trust and affective attitude toward the service provider, while operationalizing the in-group identification construct to gauge in-group membership. Findings from a field-survey with Chinese retail-banking customers (N=420) support most of the hypotheses. Besides extending relationship marketing literature by highlighting the need to incorporate unique aspects of different cultures (especially in the emerging markets), this paper also provides many useful managerial implications and directions for future research on phenomena similar to Guanxi (e.g., "blat" in Russia, "wa" in Japan and "inhwa" in Korea).
Asian organizations need to engage media to establish trust and reputation. This research examines the phenomenon of press engagement, focusing on the relationship between public relations professionals of organizations and journalists. The study draws on both the public relations and relationship marketing literature to examine the efficacy surrounding various press engagement strategies. Eighteen indepth interviews were conducted with journalists from broadcast, print, and online media in Hong Kong. The results were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Four press engagement themes emerged, including role reinforcement, responsiveness, social justice and segregation. These themes provide guidance for Asian businesses and organizations to develop their media relationship strategies. As there is no study that has investigated PR-journalist dyad relationshipsfrom the angle of the PR and customer engagement literature, this study offers new insights on organizational relationship marketing within a corporate communication context.
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