Sustainability in Relationship Marketing: An Exploratory Model for the Industrial Field

Abstract

The present paper proposes a new perspective on relationship marketing in international businesses, advancing a multidimensional model, further referred to as CRMS model (the Cs of Relationship Marketing Sustainability), developed on five key dimensions of Relationship Marketing Sustainability: Convergence, Commonality, Compatibility, Credibility, Connectivity. Surpassing unidimensional approaches, the study makes a step forward to proposing and testing the CRMS integrative model which explores sustainability in international relationship marketing. The frame of reference simultaneously considers the five groups of factors. These factors were analyzed mostly separately in previous studies that were focused either on trust and commitment, or on the intercultural learning and the influence of physical and cultural distance between partners. The research uses a survey-based analysis to test the CRMS model within internationalized businesses from steel pipe industry with 107 participating companies from 13 European countries. The empirical results point out that the CRMS model has a significant predictive power on the international partnerships and business profitability.

Consumer Empowerment in the Digital Economy: Availing Sustainable Purchasing Decisions

“…The findings do not confirm the evidence supplied by other studies on the topic [23,27,[42][43][44][45][46]52]. A possible explanation on this front may refer to the narrower scope of the consumer engagement construct, which only addressed the actual behavior when touching on problems for which there is a legitimate cause for complaint.…”

“…At this level, one of the main goals to be achieved focuses on consumer empowerment by means of "(i) increasing awareness of the importance and benefits of sustainability, both for individuals and society, (ii) developing practical knowledge of what consumers can do to support sustainable consumption, and (iii) providing necessary skills and attitudes for putting this knowledge into everyday practices" [44] (p. 9). This is why success on achieving sustainable consumption mainly relies on the prerequisites of decision making [45], and as Wright, Newman and Dennis content, "the ultimate decisions are made by consumers through their various abilities to exercise their choices of whether to buy or not to buy. ( .…”

“…I buy products online because I trust in the other customers' experiences and reviews. [32,[43][44][45][46][47][48]52,53] A final section addressed the respondents' characteristics in terms of gender, age, level of education and their experience in online consumption measured by means of the period of time they have been purchasing online and through the number of online providers they have purchased from). A synopsis in this respect is presented in Table 2.…”

From the deliberate managerial strategy towards international business performance: A psychic distance vs. global mindset approach

“…A similar, yet lower positive influence is exerted on intercultural compatibility, showing SMEs managers' proneness towards counterparts with a close cultural profile and, thus, acknowledging the importance of interpersonal factors in the development of business relationships. Related evidence was brought forward by the studies conducted by Håkanson and Ambos (), Sousa and Lages (), Griffith and Dimitrova (), Păduraru et al (), and Vătămănescu et al ().…”

“…Business networks are sets of connected relationships, comprising of several dyadic relationships between companies, embedded in a certain context or a certain network, providing more advantages than simple dyadic relationships (Anderson, Håkansson, & Johanson, 1994;V at am anescu et al, 2019). Entering such networks benefits both the companies involved and the surrounding system, as well as other organizations (Glauner, 2019;P aduraru et al, 2016).…”