Standing on the shoulders of giants: an examination of the interdisciplinary foundation of relationship marketing

In the 20th century, the scholarly study of human relationships both grew dramatically and simultaneously fragmented into various disciplines and subdisciplines. Although diversity of thought is generally considered helpful for the evolution of scientific fields, the value accrued from interdisciplinary discourse depends on the ability of scholars to integrate multiple perspectives and synthesize foundational works in a systematic manner. The goal of this study is to synthesize foundational theories from social and behavioral sciences that have contributed to an understanding of relationship marketing. In seeking to provide a holistic understanding of the field, we incorporate contributions from the disciplines of marketing, management, psychology, and sociology. In building on our analysis, we synthesize our findings into a conceptual model that examines the systematic dimensions of relationship marketing. The article concludes by identifying key themes for contributors to the Journal of Relationship Marketing to consider going forward.

It’s not the size, it’s the relationship: from ‘small states’ to asymmetry

Debate about the definition of “small state” has produced more fragmentation than consensus, even as the literature has demonstrated its subjects’ roles in joining international organizations propagating norms, executing creative diplomacy, influencing allies, avoiding and joining conflicts, and building peace. However, work on small states has struggled to identify commonalities in these states’ international relations, to cumulate knowledge, or to impact broader IR theory. This paper advocates a changed conceptual and definitional framework. Analysis of “small states” should pivot to examine the dynamics of the asymmetrical relationships in which these states are engaged. Instead of seeking an overall metric for size as the relevant variable—falling victim in a different way Dahl’s “lump-of-power fallacy,” we can recognize the multifaceted, variegated nature of power, whether in war or peacetime.

Building equitable staff-parent communication in early childhood settings : an Australian case study

International research has consistently found that good staff-parent relationships in early childhood centers benefit children, staff, and parents. Given these findings, the Australian federal government's Quality Improvement and Accreditation Scheme (QIAS) requires centers to involve parents in their programs. However, international research has also found that early childhood staff are anxious about their relationships with parents. This article describes a study in which early childhood staff in Australia were asked about their experiences with parent involvement. It draws on those interviews to consider communication strategies to create equitable relationships between staff and parents.

Portable sick leave in the Victorian building industry : managing cumulative employee benefits in the absence of employment security

The trend away from full-time permanent employment raises questions about the relevance of traditional approaches to managing and compensating employees. Employment in the Australian building industry is characterised by short-term, project-based employment. Employers and unions in the industry have adopted alternative compensation models to accommodate the short-term nature of employment, most notably through portable benefit schemes. In 1997, the Victorian building industry extended the range of portable benefits to include sick leave. Empirical evidence suggests a relationship between employee absence behaviour and accrual entitlement models. Research reported here supports this link, and suggests that both employers and employees can benefit from an alternative, portable, approach to accrued entitlements. Employers can benefit because employees may be less likely to take an instrumental approach to their entitlements. Employees benefit because they are able to accrue entitlements for the period they remain in the building industry, irrespective of the extent to which they change jobs.

Relationship marketing, audience retention and performing arts organisation viability

Marketing strategy in performing arts organisations has become particularly important in the increasingly competitive environment in which the arts operate. Since the late 1980s there has been a necessary shift in focus to audience development away from product development. This change in focus is being encouraged to ensure the long-term viability of performing arts organisations (PAOs) and micro-economic reform. While government reports have recommended strategies aimed at building audience based recognition, this is an expensive approach for many PAOs and does not produce short term returns. Little attention has been paid to building enduring relationships with existing audiences as a way if having a more dramatic impact on PAOs' long-term viability. This paper explores this theme through relationship marketing and the implication of retaining existing audiences. The paper identifies the changing cultural environment which has led to the importance if marketing. It then explains the concepts if relationship marketing and its pertinence to PAOs' viability by presenting a loyalty ladder. The structure is modelled as a dynamic conceptualisation of the relationships (audience and organisation) to assist arts managers to decide whether to focus their efforts on catching or keeping customers to maximise earned income.

2D and 3D modelling of building form subjected to ember attack

This paper furthers the research of Rollo, Luther and Atkinson 1999, and Rollo, Honey, Atkinson and Luther 2003, regarding the way in which building shape appears to contribute to the collection of fire-brand debris subject to ember attack. The paper will present a range of 2D fluid-mapping and 3D wind tunnel studies (Melaragno 1982) which have been correlated with the transportation characteristics of an ember laden air-field (Cheney and Sullivan 1997). Working with a range of generic building types the paper also introduces simple spatial modelling techniques which are being developed to illustrate the relationship between ember capture and changes in wind speed and air pressure.

Waste production simulation for building deconstruction projects

The recently erected concept of building deconstruction has significantly promoted building components and materials reuse and recycling where building is carefully dismantled into reusable parts. Current research and practices of building deconstruction mainly focus on issues of process before and during the deconstruction such as hazardous material detection, deconstruction design and deconstruction technology. The issues after the deconstruction project are rarely considered. Waste reuse and recycling are enabled through deconstruction yet not practically achieved, and especially the demands of waste building components and materials are hard to appear and match the actual waste production in a building deconstruction project. To deal with this awkward situation, the waste production needs to be conducted in a demand-oriented way. It needs to be thoughtfully planned and scheduled prior to the physical deconstruction as an essential portion of deconstruction project planning and scheduling. Furthermore, the relationship between waste production and structural characteristics of the building creates a serious consideration affecting a deconstruction plan. As a result, a waste production simulation will facilitate waste reuse and recycling in a deconstruction project. It serves as a crucial section of deconstruction planning and design. This research aims to describe the concept of waste production simulation and investigate various management and technical aspects of waste production simulation for building deconstruction projects.

A greener house : the sustainable property investor's guide to buying, building and renovating

Sustainability is now an integral part of society and the built environment. Unfortunately many home owners and home-buyers are unaware of the relationship between sustainability and value, especially with regard to the potential added value to their home. Payback periods can be different depending on factors such as the initial capital outlay and the levels of depreciation and obsolescence, as well as savings made (if any) to the running costs of the home

Reliability of building embodied energy modelling: an analysis of 30 Melbourne case studies

Building design decisions are commonly based on issues pertaining to construction cost, and consideration of energy performance is made only within the context of the initial project budget. Even where energy is elevated to more importance, operating energy is seen as the focus and embodied energy is nearly always ignored. For the first time, a large sample of buildings has been assembled and analysed in a single study to improve the understanding of the relationship between energy and cost performance over their full life cycle. Thirty recently completed buildings in Melbourne, Australia have been studied to explore the accuracy of initial embodied energy prediction based on capital cost at various levels of model detail. The embodied energy of projects, elemental groups, elements and selected items of work are correlated against capital cost and the strength of the relationship is computed. The relationship between initial embodied energy and capital cost generally declines as the predictive model assumes more detail, although elemental modelling may provide the best solution on balance.

Assessing the relationship between loyalty program attributes, store satisfaction and store loyalty

After a decade of research there is still much to understand about the relationship between loyalty programs and whether they deliver on their promise of building customer loyalty towards a store and understanding the mediating role of store satisfaction. Our results suggest that loyalty program as a summary construct, explains a significant proportion of the variance in store satisfaction and store loyalty. However, disaggregation of the construct into hard versus soft attributes, promotes greater specificity, precision and accuracy in uncovering the differential impact on store satisfaction and store loyalty.

Building brand identity : Does it pay? An investigation into cultural and recreational services

This conceptual paper aims to contribute to current services branding literature by conceptualising the relationship between brand identity and critical antecedents and empirically verifying whether the creation of a strong brand identity results in the ultimate pay off in terms of improved organisational performance. A conceptual model is developed in the context of the cultural and recreational services sector and central constructs and subsequent propositions are discussed.

Building information modelling project decision support framework

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an information technology [IT] enabled approach to managing design data in the AEC/FM (Architecture, Engineering and Construction/ Facilities Management) industry. BIM enables improved interdisciplinary collaboration across distributed teams, intelligent documentation and information retrieval, greater consistency in building data, better conflict detection and enhanced facilities management. Despite the apparent benefits the adoption of BIM in practice has been slow. Workshops with industry focus groups were conducted to identify the industry needs, concerns and expectations from participants who had implemented BIM or were BIM “ready”. Factors inhibiting BIM adoption include lack of training, low business incentives, perception of lack of rewards, technological concerns, industry fragmentation related to uneven ICT adoption practices, contractual matters and resistance to changing current work practice. Successful BIM usage depends on collective adoption of BIM across the different disciplines and support by the client. The relationship of current work practices to future BIM scenarios was identified as an important strategy as the participants believed that BIM cannot be efficiently used with traditional practices and methods. The key to successful implementation is to explore the extent to which current work practices must change. Currently there is a perception that all work practices and processes must adopt and change for effective usage of BIM. It is acknowledged that new roles and responsibilities are emerging and that different parties will lead BIM on different projects. A contingency based approach to the problem of implementation was taken which relies upon integration of BIM project champion, procurement strategy, team capability analysis, commercial software availability/applicability and phase decision making and event analysis. Organizations need to understand: (a) their own work processes and requirements; (b) the range of BIM applications available in the market and their capabilities (c) the potential benefits of different BIM applications and their roles in different phases of the project lifecycle, and (d) collective supply chain adoption capabilities. A framework is proposed to support organizations selection of BIM usage strategies that meet their project requirements. Case studies are being conducted to develop the framework. The results of the preliminary design management case study is presented for contractor led BIM specific to the design and construct procurement strategy.

Development of mound-building in Australian brush-turkeys (Alectura lathami) : the role of learning, testosterone and body mass

Australian brush-turkeys (Alectura lathami) hatch in incubation mounds of organic material and have no parental role models to learn from. When raised in outdoor aviaries, without adults, four of six males built incubation mounds at an early age of 4.5–9 months. The two males without mounds were the only ones without detectable levels of testosterone (T) at 4.5 months, whereas body mass did not explain the presence or absence of mound building. At the age of 11 months, all males had detectable T, including those without mounds. This study also investigated the development of social dominance in males kept in mixed-sex groups for 4.5 months. At this latter age, higher-ranked males tended to have higher T levels (P = 0.076), whereas dominance ranks at 4.5 months were not correlated with body mass or size, either at this age or at hatching. Overall, these results suggest that mound building develops without learning, and there is a relationship between T levels and dominance status as well as the absence or presence of mound building. These findings contribute to discussions on the role of learning in behavioural development and the role of T and body mass in avian life history.

The relationship between sustainability and the value of office buildings

There is an increasing body of evidence to suggest that the development of sustainability in office buildings and the acceptance of these buildings in the broader property market is increasing. However a gap still remains between the value of sustainability and the value of the building from an International Valuation Standards Committee (IVSC) definition of market value. Current literature is limited in the investigation of the impact of sustainable criteria on value component when undertaking a valuation of a commercial office building. Whilst substantial advances have been made in sustainable design and construction aspects, as well as reducing implementation costs and enhancing benefits associated with sustainability, there appears to be inherent barriers in adopting sustainability in the valuation process for the property industry.

This paper examines the limited previous research into the elements of sustainable criteria that impact upon property value, and in turn should be reflected in traditional valuation methods. The immaturity of the property market for sustainable building is such that current valuation methods do not appear to have significant evidential proof of increased property value through sales or lease evidence for sustainable buildings. Furthermore, this lack of market evidence makes it inherently difficult for valuers to assess the real market value of sustainable buildings through current valuation methodology. In other words, the level of risk associated with incorporating different levels of sustainability into office buildings appears difficult to measure using a market value perspective in today’s property market. Accordingly this paper examines current research that has been undertaken to identify particular sustainable criteria that potentially affects the value of a sustainable building. For example, previous research suggests that sustainable criteria impact upon the valuation equation through rental growth, depreciation, risk premium and cash flow. This paper also examines how other studies have viewed the impact of sustainable criteria and how they are weighted within the valuation equation. The discussion provides an insight into the rapidly evolving area of sustainability and office buildings with emphasis placed on the valuation process that seeks to assess a hypothetical purchaser’s perspective of this relationship.

Constructing a framework for building relationships and trust in project organisations : two case studies of building projects in China

A framework is constructed that can be used to foster trust and build relationships in construction project organizations in China. The research method was based on in-depth study of two building projects in China and data were collected via face-to-face interviews. The results show that as the project progresses, the dominant relationship within each stage deepens. The deepening relationship gives rise to different types of inherent risks such as a partner's self-interest seeking behaviour and opportunistic actions. To counterbalance these risks, trust fostering tools must be employed such as careful selection and effective management of partners. The framework for fostering trust and building relationship developed in the study suggests that (1) relationship deepens from shallow dependence to deep interdependence as the project progresses; (2) different relationships bring about distinct inherent risks; and (3) different trust-fostering tools counterbalance specific inherent risks. This framework could aid in reducing adversarial relationships by suggesting ways to foster trustworthy relationships.