Customer Intimacy Research Articles

Does Critical Success Factors of KM Mediate the KS-Driven Performance in the Software Sector of Pakistan?

This research tends to investigate role of KS practices on overall performance of software sector using critical success factors of KM (i.e. KM process and infrastructure capabilities) as intermediate measures. In this regard, a survey method using the adapted instrument to draw the inference from data collected from software developers. The parallel multiple mediation model proposed and tested by using Process Macro. The findings of study reveal that KS practices have a significant and positive effect on the overall performance in terms of operational excellence, financial achievement, customer intimacy, product leadership. The results indicate that all the constructs of KM process and infrastructure capabilities partially mediates the relationship between KS practices and performance of software sector. Hence, findings of study support all the suggested hypotheses and draws the inference that KM process and infrastructure capabilities support the theoretical prisms of KBV initiatives.

Strategizing in a digital world: Overcoming cognitive barriers, reconfiguring routines and introducing new organizational forms

As digital technologies such as cloud and edge computing, machine learning, advanced artificial intelligence (AI), and the internet of things (IoT) unfold, traditional industries such as telecoms, media, entertainment, and financial services are being reconfigured and new sectors are emerging. In this new competitive landscape we observe new organizational forms and new business models, including the emergence of platforms and multi-sided markets. This emergence has required a strategic response from incumbent firms, including both well-established firms and some first-generation digital enterprises. With these advances in digital technology, the very nature of strategy is changing. Fundamentally, the use of digital technologies may provide new opportunities for efficiency gains, customer intimacy, and innovation. However, without the right mindset for change, appropriate digital routines, and structural changes, digital transformation efforts will fail. We therefore present a framework for strategizing in this new digital competitive landscape that underscores the importance of the interplay between (1) the cognitive barriers faced by managers when trying to understand this new digital world and envision new digital business models, (2) a need to reconfigure and extend digital routines, and (3) new organizational forms that are better equipped to creating value and gaining competitive advantage. From this framework of essential pillars, we derive four journeys of digital transformation for companies that were formed in the pre-digital economy. We also describe the management roles required by top, middle, and frontline managers, depending on whether the digital migration is evolutionary or transformative and whether the firm is responding to or attempting to shape the ecosystem. Although digital transformation is technically all about technology, the more important issue is how companies make their way through this strange new digital world in which they find themselves. Ultimately digital transformation is as much about strategizing as it is about technology.

Tourism, environment and hotel management: an innovative perspective to address modern trends in contemporary tourism management

PurposeThis paper aims to provide a valid insight into consumers' minds while considering word of mouth (WOM), brand image and uniqueness as independent variables while considering the tourism industry as the primary stakeholder.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts qualitative research methods and data collected from 1,033 respondents using convenience sampling methodology. The data are collected from different tourists spots in China and Pakistan. The PROCESS macro was utilized in this study using SPSS version 25.0 to inspect the impacts by using Model 4 and the conditional effects indirectly by utilizing Model 14.FindingsCustomer's intimacy, search for novel and unexplored destinations highlight WOM interactions and perceived service value. Service value, interactional justice and professional attitude of hotel management mediated all the given relationships significantly. The brand image does not mediate any significant associations. Perceived service value and brand image predict customer's loyalty, and WOM is the direct measure of their intentions, and these variables are market trend indicators. A tourist's response toward different destinations is described in this study with comparative analysis of Chinese and Pakistani tourists. The study results showed a significantly positive relationship between hotel management professional behavior, customer's loyalty, customer's intimacy and WOM.Research limitations/implicationsThe recruited population might not be represented as the broader and larger visitor population, resulting in restricting establishing tactics. Moreover, this study's results provide significant insight into a tourism industry, hence providing a chance to manage customer loyalty better.Social, managerial and theoretical implicationsThis study contributes significantly to the body of knowledge and provides remarkable insight from the managerial perspective. Interactional justice results in significant value for hotel management directors and top management, front desk staff and operatives and front level employees and managers. Consumer sensitivity of fairness in interpersonal dealings calls for behavioral changes in frontline employees, especially those directly dealing with hotel visitors. Hotel staff and management should formulate a system to deal with the demands and needs of visitors. It should describe the rights and obligations of visitors and ensure that each customer is treated equally and with respect. Customers should be motivated to read the survey questionnaires kept in their rooms and offer their views on the services provided. This strategy might increase the customers' sense of empowerment and leading to notions of fairness in individual encounters.Originality/valueThis study provides an insight into the customer's minds while considering essential variables that include WOM, brand image, perceived service value and uniqueness.

What Drives Customer Loyalty in Islamic Banking? An Evidence from Pakistan

This study investigates the role of customer intimacy, commitment, and trust in increasing their loyalty and mediating role across trust and customer loyalty nexus. A total of 500 questionnaires were disseminated but 404 of these were included for analysis (approx. 81% response rate). The hypotheses were tested through the structural equation modeling technique using smart PLS. The results indicate that trust has a significant nexus with commitment, customer intimacy, and loyalty. Both commitment and customer intimacy have a significant nexus with customer loyalty. The mediation analysis reveals that commitment and customer intimacy act as important mediating variables in the nexus. The research outcome supports the notion that as the level of trust increases the level of intimacy, commitment, and loyalty would tend to increase as well. The results further reveal that customers are devoted towards persistent and continuing association with Islamic banks. Commitment, trust, and customer intimacy prove to be the foundation factors for building and strengthening customer loyalty. It emerges, that in terms of hierarchy, the customer trust needs to be evolved at the initial level consistently followed by customers' intimacy, commitment, and loyalty.

Factors propelling the use of Islamic banking services: the moderating role of customer intimacy

This study investigates factors propelling use of Islamic banking products and services. The present study develops an amalgamated model with the help of cognitive and emotional factors to investigate customer satisfaction and loyalty towards use of Islamic banking services. Data was collected from Islamic banking customers and empirically tested using structural equation modelling (SEM). Findings reveal that customer satisfaction was jointly predicted by awareness, reputation, compatibility, complexity, trust and commitment and explained R2 78.7% variance in Islamic banking customer satisfaction. On the flipside customer loyalty was predicted by customer satisfaction and customer intimacy and depicted R2 20.6% variance in customer loyalty. Extending to this, the present study confirmed the moderating role of customer intimacy wherein positive relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty will be stronger when customer intimacy is higher. Finally, research limitations and future research direction are discussed.

A disaggregated approach to establishing the antecedents and outcome of relationship quality in the South African banking industry

Practitioners and academics are showing greater interest in the relationship quality between firms and their customers due to its positive association with customer loyalty. To improve relationship quality, it is imperative to identify its antecedents. The purpose of this study was, by following a disaggregated approach, to establish the predictability of three antecedents (customer intimacy, communication effectiveness and relationship investment) on relationship quality and one of its outcomes, namely customer loyalty. Data were collected from 258 South African banking customers by means of self-administered questionnaires. Results showed that customer intimacy and communication effectiveness predict all three relationship quality dimensions, namely satisfaction, trust and commitment. In contrast, relationship investment predicted only trust. Finally, although commitment did not predict loyalty, both satisfaction and trust did, with satisfaction being the strongest predictor of customer loyalty.

Strategy Topology and Cost Structure: A Textual Analysis Approach

In this study, we follow the strategy typology proposed by Treacy and Wiersema (1995) and develop a textual measure of firms’ generic strategy along three dimensions: product leadership, customer intimacy, and operational excellence. Product-leadership firms emphasize innovation and confront high congestion risk caused by rapid growth. We hypothesize that these firms adopt a more rigid cost structure with higher fixed and lower variable costs to promote innovation and reduce congestion risk. Consistent with our prediction, we find that product-leadership firms exhibit higher cost rigidity than customer-intimacy and operational-excellence firms. This finding is robust to using a difference-in-difference approach based on a quasi-natural shock caused by the adoption of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine. Furthermore, we find that the effects of the three strategies on cost structure are intensified by R&D investment, customer concentration, and asset utilization, respectively. Collectively, our findings suggest that organizational strategy has a significant impact on firms’ resource commitments and capacity choices.

The Effect of Customers Beliefs about Their Bank, on Their Loyalty in Islamic Banking Relationships, and Intention to Leave: The Role of Trust, Dissatisfaction with Banking Channels, Commitment, and Customer Intimacy

The Effect of Customers Beliefs about Their Bank, on Their Loyalty in Islamic Banking Relationships, and Intention to Leave: The Role of Trust, Dissatisfaction with Banking Channels, Commitment, and Customer Intimacy

Business and Operational Strategy for Service Based Port Company in Indonesia to Face Covid-19 Pandemic

Covid-19 pandemic has threatened the port support service industry in Indonesia. These threats are in the form of decreasing demand throughout the customer market, increasing competition in the industry, rising operating costs, and the emergence of operational issues on how to handle operational activities safely. To deal with these issues, XYZ one of port service company was selected. Primary and secondary data are then collected, SWOT are identified and analyzed and company’s business and operational strategies are then formulated. After formulating the business strategy using diamond strategy framework and developing operational strategi based on the business strategy requirement we conclude that the strategies to solve the company problems are strengthening its network, performing taper integration and strengthening operational excellence and customer intimacy simultaneously. The suitable operation strategy to support the above strategies are taper integration, maintaining external resources, integrated planning and control, implementation of tight integrated standard business process, and continuous improvement.

Effect of gratification on user attitude and continuance use of mobile payment services: a developing country context

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the gratifications driving the attitude and continuance use of mobile payment services in developing country context, such as Ghana. Also, the moderating effect of income and education on gratifications and attitude of users is explored.Design/methodology/approachData was collected from conveniently sampled 361 users of mobile payment services in Ghana. A questionnaire, which mainly contains five-point Likert scale questions, was used to collect the data. The study adopted the Uses and Gratification (U&G) theory, where income and education were used as moderating factors. The data was analysed with SmartPLS for Structural Equation Modelling.FindingsAmong the other factors from the U&G theory, integrative, ease of use and usefulness gratifications were found to significantly influence attitude towards the use of mobile payment services in Ghana. In addition to this finding, user attitude significantly influences the continuance use intention of mobile payment services. Furthermore, the study revealed various effects of the moderating factors. These findings suggest that promoting mobile payment technology inclusiveness by creating a favourable environment would enhance the use of mobile payment services in Ghana.Research limitations/implicationsGiven that this study was conducted in Ghana, a developing country, it is difficult to generalize the results to encompass the developed economies. In future, similar research should compare the developed and developing economies by considering culture as a moderating effect.Practical implicationsThis study intends to provide information on the gratifications that drive the attitude and continuance use of mobile payment services in Ghana. The findings seek to augment mobile money service providers’ capabilities by providing them with an understanding of user gratification experience on mobile payment services. Additionally, the study will serve as a guide to policymakers in the government, telecommunication companies and mobile banking providers, to improve customer intimacy and gratification through their user behaviour.Originality/valuePrevious studies on user gratification have primarily focussed on the functional benefits derived from mobile payments and how they influence the service’s adoption. This study has contributed to literature by considering both the functional and non-functional benefits of mobile payment in developing country context. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to consider income and education as moderating variables to study the gratification levels of mobile payment users in Ghana and among few in Africa.

The Effect of Sharia Governance and Customer Relationship Marketing on Muzakki Loyalty

This study aims to analyze the effect of sharia governance and customer relationship marketing on muzakki loyalty. In this study, sharia governance was divided into six variables, i.e. transparency, accountability, responsibility, independence, fairness, and sharia compliance. Whereas customer relationship marketing was divided into four variables, i.e. trust, communication, commitment, and customer intimacy. We employed survey as a preferred method to obtained data. The samples of this study consisted of 200 muzakki (zakat payer) at amil zakat institutions (LAZ) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The data was analyzed using OLS regression techniques. The results of this research found that transparency, fairness and sharia compliance have a positive significant effect on customer loyalty, while accountability, responsiveness, and independency do not have significant effect on customer loyalty. Regarding the variable of customer relationship marketing, the result showed that communication, trust, and customer intimacy have a positive and significant effect on muzakki loyalty while commitment has no effect. It can be inferred that sharia governance and customer relationship marketing partially have a positive effect on muzakki loyalty.

Linking Relational Benefits and Customer Loyalty: The Mediating Role of Customer Intimacy

This paper contributes to the debate on the dimensionality of relational benefits by establishing it as second-order reflective construct with three related but distinct dimensions, namely, confidence benefits, social benefits, and special treatment benefits in the B2C services context. This is one of the few empirical studies to investigate the role of intimacy in service relationships, and the first to illustrate its mediating effects on the benefits–loyalty relationship. While existing literature regards service benefits, trust, and commitment as key pillars, our study proposes complementary contributions of intimacy to customer loyalty formation as an asset for managers to explore.

THE EFFECT OF CUSTOMER INTIMACY, CUSTOMERS EXPERIENCE, CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND CUSTOMER BONDING ON CUSTOMER LOYALTY AT BANK BRI SYARIAH KCP PANDA'AN PASURUAN

Indonesia's economic development, which is increasingly advanced, especially in the field of Islamic banking. The development of Islamic banking in Indonesia gave birth to so many investors and customers with various fundraising. High public interest in Islamic banks in saving and financing makes the banking sector more prospective. In this case, making competition in Islamic banking more competitive, especially for sharia-based banks with the same target market segment, Islamic banks have increased significantly from year to year. From this opportunity, many Islamic banks in Indonesia competed in order to meet customer needs. In this case, Islamic banks have an important role, namely to always meet customers' needs, provide products or services that are ethical following sharia principles, and provide the most comfortable access through various means anytime, anywhere. This research is an explanatory research that aims to determine the effect of Customer Intimacy, Customer Experience, Customer Bonding, Customer Satisfaction on customer loyalty. In this case, researchers take samples at Bank. In Syariah KCP Pandaan. The sample used was 92 respondents, namely customers at BRI Syariah KCP Pandaan, the sampling technique used was a pursosive r; the sampling method. This type of purposive research with a quantitative approach. The data used are primary data. Primary data were obtained based on results' answers to questionnaires distributed to customers at BRI Syariah KCP Pandaan Bank. Analysis of the data used is multiple linear regression analysis.

Curating Luxe Experiences Online? Explicating the Mechanisms of Luxury Content Marketing in Cultivating Brand Loyalty

Luxury brands have been increasing investment in creating compelling content that communicates brand value and stories on social media. Yet research on understanding the mechanisms of luxury content marketing in brand building is still scarce. Hence, we proposed and tested a comprehensive conceptual model explicating the mechanisms through which the perceived value of luxury content marketing on social media (i.e., YouTube) shapes brand loyalty among luxury purchasers. Our findings demonstrate that the perceived experiential value and unique value of luxury branded content are positively related to perceived brand prestige, brand exclusivity, and customer intimacy, respectively, which in turn, are significantly associated with brand loyalty. The perceived functional value of the brand’s YouTube channel is positively related to perceived brand prestige and brand exclusivity, respectively, which in turn, are significantly associated with brand loyalty.

The role of customer intimacy in increasing Islamic bank customer loyalty in using e-banking and m-banking

PurposeThe purposes of this study are to develop an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) model by adding customer intimacy, perceived risk, trust andShariacompliance as external variables, in which TAM is used as the evaluation method for the use of e-banking and m-banking by customers of Islamic bank; and to study the role of customer intimacy in increasing satisfaction and encouraging loyalty of Islamic bank customers in using e-banking and m-banking.Design/methodology/approachData collection is carried out by the self-administered survey method with Islamic bank customers as target population. Multivariate analysis of variance and multiple linear regression are applied for data analysis.FindingsCustomer intimacy not only encourages the emergence of customer loyalty directly, but also affects the factors that determine customer loyalty itself, such as perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived risk, trust, sharia compliance and satisfaction. In other words, customer intimacy has a direct and indirect influence on loyalty.Originality/valueThis paper offers an extended TAM constructs to study the role of customer intimacy in increasing loyalty by considering various variables, namely, perceived risk, trust,Shariacompliance and satisfaction. Similar research is still very limited in the banking marketing literature, especially in Islamic banks context.

Can Customer Intimacy Strategy Generate Intention to Buy?

Creating customer intention to buy is obviously a major task of every marketer and/or firm. Many tactics are exercised to generate the intention, in which a buying behavior is hopefully occured. A customer intimacy strategy supposedly be a particular way to do it. However, its power to generate the intention hypothetically is not straight forward, but through other variables. It is commonly known, in accordance with the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), the intention could be predicted by consumer attitude and subjective norm. Meanwhile, the attitude and subjective norm theirself are frequently in-line with the product’s performance. Therefore.the purpose of the study is to investigate the power of customer intimacy strategy in creating the customer intention to buy through the product’s brand equity and both the consumer attitude and subjective norm. A 108 sample is withdrawn from those who recognize, are interested of and want to buy Dagadu products. Amos 16.0 and SPSS 16.0 are employed in analyzing data. The result shows that the customer intimacy strategy has significant effects to the brand equity, attitude and subjective norm. In addition, the brand equity also has a significant influence to the intention.

The impact of blockchain on business models in banking

Blockchain technology is predicted to reshape existing business models of the financial services industry. But although blockchain is often seen as a strategic technology, research focusing on its impact on business models is still rare. This research derives a hypotheses model that connects IT innovations with the three generic value disciplines of banks “operational excellence”, “customer intimacy” and “product leadership” as well as the four generic elements of business models “what”, “who”, “how” and “value”. A business model acts as a mediator for IT innovation. To test the hypothesis model data provided from an international survey of 104 financial services institutions and start-up companies was applied. The results support the hypothesis that all three value disciplines might be impacted by blockchain technology in the future. The regression analysis reveals that especially banks’ operations could be significantly changed. With these results, this research contributes to the emerging literature on blockchain and business models and the strategic use of IT.

What Business Strategy Does and what Management Accounting is Pursuing: A Logistic Regression Analysis

Purpose: The aim of this study is to determine whether the time period of business operation, business size, and management accounting tools are predictive of business strategy, customer intimacy, and operational excellence or product leadership. Design/Methodology/Approach: Multiple logistic regression assessed the relative importance of each factor to each category from 400 participants of SMEs. Findings: The evidence suggests that managing customers’ relationship, product or service cost information, and budgeting are aligned factors for the companies that adopt customer intimacy strategy whereas, budgeting and product or service cost information are the factors for operational excellence strategy. However, product or service cost information provides direct relationship in which the factor increases the likelihood of a positive answer than budgeting and managing customers’ relationship in which the factors decrease it, although all of the three factors are significant for the company that adopts product leadership strategy. The findings proved that product or service cost information was useful to all types of customer value proposition and the appropriateness of management accounting information system depends upon the strategies and managerial business assumptions. Practical Implications: The implementation of strategy is crucial because it requires decision making that needs to be aligned to the company’s goals and strive to deliver positive impact to target customers. Originality/Value: This study provides an indication of the appropriate category, and the positive and negative contributions of different factors for each strategy.

Value Creation From a Decentralized Car Ledger

Blockchain technology is expected to create a variety of new opportunities for businesses. Yet, little is known about how the technology actually enables to create value and how companies will be able to exploit true business value. However, without a clear understanding of the value creation potential from the technology, and corresponding adaption of business practices, the realization of value is doomed to failure. Hence, we contribute to this gap by exploring and explicating the specificities of value creation from blockchain in the ecosystem of a car. In the course of an exploratory case study analysis, over a time period of 2 years, we conducted three iterations of interviews and workshops with industry and blockchain experts from five diverse stakeholder groups. In brief, we provide early evidence that (1) blockchain enables value creation through: Distributed Product Innovation, Shared Operational Efficiency, and Controlled Customer Intimacy. Furthermore, we discuss our learnings for businesses in other domains aiming to leverage value from blockchain technology. We do so, by deriving guidelines for each blockchain value discipline. Furthermore, we give recommendations on how blockchain projects in ecosystems should approach multiple blockchain value potentials.

Estimated Stock Price Based on Company Communications: Mind Genomics and Cognitive Economics as Knowledge-Creation Tools for Behavioral Finance

Respondents estimated the price of a share of stock for a company, based upon a set of short vignettes, one estimate for each vignette. The vignettes comprised 2-4 elements-statements selected from four groups: WHO presents the information, the companys VALUES, how the presenter shows ALIGNMENT with company values, and how CUSTOMERS respond. The linkage between expected dollar value of the stock and message was highest for the element talking about positive customer reviews. The respondents divide into two groups or mind-sets, based upon their patterns of response to the elements. Mind-Set 1 estimates stock price based on messages communicating good governance. Mind-Set 2 estimates stock price based on messages communicating customer intimacy and excitement.