Relationship marketing (RM) has emerged as a new marketing idea for many firms in Western countries. The aim of this paper is to review the evolution of RM ideas. Definitional difficulties are sorted out, a typology of many of the relationships is developed, structural and social bonds are identified and whether RM is a paradigm shift for marketing theorists and practitioners is debated. This paper argues that RM is not a paradigm shift, but rather an appropriate marketing approach when management considers product/service, customer, and organization factors. The paper’s contribution is its comprehensiveness and up‐to‐date review of the evolution of core RM ideas.

This research used the somewhat new methodology of convergent interviews to develop a conceptual framework about relationship constructs in an Internet environment. More generally, this article describes and illustrates the processes and the strengths of convergent interviewing to investigate under-researched areas, and compares it with alternative qualitative techniques like in-depth interviews, case research and focus groups. The illustration involves interviews conducted with marketing managers and business consultants from ten service companies, about Internet and relationship marketing. It is argued that convergent interviewing is more appropriate than some other qualitative methods to investigate under-researched areas where there are few experts because it provides a way of quickly converging on key issues in the area, an efficient mechanism for data analysis after each interview, and a way of deciding when to stop collecting data. Convergent interviews could become another useful qualitative research method to explore new issues about emerging marketing phenomena.

Mobile services are heralded to create a tremendous spectrum of business opportunities. User acceptance of these services is of paramount importance. Consequently, a deeper insight into theory-based research is required to better understand the underlying motivations that lead users to adopting mobile services. As mobile services bring additional functional dimensions, including hedonic and experiential aspects, using extant models for predicting mobile services acceptance by individuals may be inadequate. The aim of this paper is to explore, analyse and critically assess the use of existing acceptance theories in the light of the evolving and ubiquitous mobile services and their underlying technologies. Constructs affecting consumer adoption behaviour are discussed and relevant propositions are made. Managerial implications are explored and future research directions are also identified.

Firms have only just begun to use the Internet to obtain customer information in their database marketing processes to enhance customer relationship management. This research uses an action research approach to develop a new framework about how they can do this. The action research project was carried out in a large Australian database company because no other sources of empirical information about the topic were available and it could provide rich findings about an under-researched, practical area. Results showed that integration of the Internet and database marketing enhances the effectiveness of customer relationship management practices. For example, the Internet offers benefits such as increased consumer data collection accuracy and speed, cost savings, greater interaction and better relationships with customers. This research also identifies that organizational culture, top management support and collaboration between marketing and IT teams need to be in place to provide a supportive environment that is critical for the success of the integration.

The eXtensible business reporting language is an XML-based standard, which has the potential to significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of intra- and inter-organizational information supply chain. In this article, we present the case for using convergent interviews as an appropriate and efficient method for modelling factors impacting the adoption of emerging and under-researched innovations, such as XBRL. Using this method, we identify environmental, organizational and innovation-related factors as they apply to XBRL adoption and diffusion. Contentious factors, such as the role of government organizations, XBRL education and training, and the readiness of XBRL as an innovation and its supporting software solutions is examined in more detail. Further, practical adoptions strategies and their implications are also discussed.

The impact of the internet on inter-firm relationships has received little attention in the academic literature. This theory building research develops a conceptual framework about internet-facilitated relationships based on the literature and research findings from convergent interviews. The convergent interviews were conducted with CEOs and/or marketing managers of 10 Australian service companies. Results show that the internet does not appear to hinder inter-firm relationships as the internet is not being used at the expense of more traditional and personal forms of communication and has little impact on the level of trust in internet exchange partners and the dependence they have on one another at this relatively early stage of adoption. Rather, internet use is thought to be linked with improved business performance and satisfaction with the exchange partner's performance. The findings of this research add to the body of marketing knowledge and provide guidelines for managers to more effectively use the internet in managing their relationships with other businesses. Relationship MarketingThis research investigates the intersection of relationship marketing and internet marketing. Relationship marketing was first investigated in the 1970s. Driven by global competition, relationship marketing was noticed when many businesses learnt that they must collaborate to compete (Palmer 1997(Palmer , 2000. However, it was not until the late 1970s and the 1980s that the term "relationship marketing" emerged in the marketing literature. Simultaneously but independently, researchers in the United States (for example, Wilson, 1976;Jackson, 1985) and Europe (for example, Gummesson, 1987;Hakansson, 1982;Johanson and Mattsson, 1987) began to look beyond simple dyadic transactions and began to explore the notion of dyadic relationships (Healy, Hastings, Brown and Gardiner, 2001). The two major theoretical streams of relationship marketing were the Nordic school focusing on services marketing, and the Network Approach to industrial marketing developed by the international marketing and purchasing group (IMP) (Gummesson, Lehtinen and Gronroos, 1997).Since then relationship marketing has evolved over the last two decades with the emphasis shifting with different approaches. One of the earliest approaches to relationship marketing research was social exchange theory, which placed importance on interactive marketing activities (Anderson and Narus, 1984;Araujo and Easton, 1996;Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995). Other approaches have been grounded in inter-organisation theory (Van de Ven, 1992) and industrial network theory (Mattson, 1985). Some scholars claim that only people create relationships, while others believe that customised and personalised technologically delivered services may strengthen longterm relationships (for example, Thirkell, 1997;Schultz, 1997). For example, a recent approach to relationship marketing is predicated on the interactivity of the internet and the opportunities this provides for relationship market...

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Australia is one of the leading nations using the internet in both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-tobusiness (B2B) settings (ABS 2004). However, little academic attention has been paid to the adoption of internetbased technology in the Australian franchising sector. Thus this paper addresses the problem of how Australian franchise organisations use internet-based technologies in their franchise systems. This research examines the websites of a sample of 202 Australian franchisors to determine their function as a communication and marketing tool within the franchise network. The aim is to document the web activities undertaken by Australian franchisors to provide an exploratory and descriptive snapshot that can be used as a platform for theoretical efforts The analysis reveals that adoption of internet technologies is still in its infancy in Australian franchise systems with the major uses of franchisor websites being providing information to consumers and as a means of attracting potential franchisees. There is evidence that franchise organisations are moving towards network behaviour through the internet.