Relationship Marketing as a Mediating Role Between Brand Image and Customer Loyalty in B2B Markets

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine how brand image, value equity (conceptualized as relationship value), and relationship equity (conceptualized as relationship quality) and customer loyalty play a vital role in the Egyptian business to business market-and to test it empirically in agricultural business customers of chemical manufacturer with respect to their main supplier. A structured questionnaire was developed. The hypotheses were simultaneously tested on a sample of 328 customer-supplier relationships out of 603 distributed, giving a response rate of 54.4 per cent. The structural equation modelling technique was used to empirically test the proposed hypotheses. The findings of this study show significant positive relationships and impacts among the factors under investigation. Also, relationship equity and value equity act as mediators in the link between brand image and customer loyalty.