Morana Fuduric - room A32 - 17:00-18:30

Impact of relationship orientation in social media on company performance

Today, companies operate in a dynamic environment, characterized by fast technological development, large-scale competition and globalization as well as constant changes in the market which has led to the growing awareness of the importance of relationships and customer retention (Gronroos 1994; Aijo 1996; R. Bagozzi 1995; Gronroos 2004; Athanasopoulou 2009). Combined with the emergence of the Internet during the 1990s, the two concepts gained even more importance, and are often considered critical for a company's success (Berthon et al. 2012; Ang 2011; R. P. Bagozzi and Dholakia 2002; Barlow and Thomas 2010; Boyd and Ellison 2007). The main objective of this doctoral thesis is the examination of the key components of relationship orientation in social media, and the impact of relationship orientation on business performance. This contribution can give companies a means to determine the impact such an orientation may have on a company's business performance.

The thesis offers both conceptual and empirical contributions to research. The first conceptual contribution is the development of a social media - specific relationship orientation measurement scale. Although much has been written on relationship marketing, the literature reveals very little with respect to the implementation of the concept itself. In the 30 years that have passed since the development of the concept, there have been limited contributions mostly focused on a more general, abstract approach to the implementation of relationship marketing (Gronroos 1994; Gummesson 1997; Gummesson 1998). It is only more recently that the term relationship (marketing) orientation has been introduced as an operationalization of the concept, developed and tested in specific environments (Sin et al. 2002; Tse et al. 2004; Wadeecharoen and Mat 2008). However, these contributions, although important, also show several shortcomings. These are, for example, the narrow consideration of the concept (for example, targeting customers/clients rather than a wider set of stakeholders), or not taking into account some of the basic theoretical foundations of relationship marketing (for example, some important features that pertain to relationship creation and development are missing).

A second conceptual contribution is the development of a model that links the concept of relationship orientation in social media to business performance (for the link between strategic orientation and business performance see for example Narver and Slater 1990; Connor 2007; Golden 1992; Grawe, Chen, and Daugherty 2009). Given the objectives defined, qualitative research is required, combined with the theoretical findings to understand and develop a new scale relationship orientation in social media, and build a model that would explain the link between relationship orientation in social media and company performance. Finally, in order to test the scale and the model fit, quantitative research is conducted to empirically test the new construct measurement and suggested model.

First, we will present the methodology used for the relationship orientation scale development. We replicated the procedure Kohli and Jaworski (1990) used in the process of market orientation scale development. The procedure includes conducting semi-structured field interviews with marketers and non-marketers of different backgrounds and profiles. This choice is consistent with the theoretical contributions of Gronroos (1996, 2004) and Gummesson (1998; 1996; 2002) who argue that both marketers and the so called part-time marketers are essential for the implementation of relationship marketing. A non-random, convenience sampling method was used in order to ensure a wide variety of contributions, perspectives and ideas. Second, preliminary results of field interviews are presented and discussed. Given the research methodology, this implies the development of a set of research propositions that pertain to the scope and activities of relationship oriented companies, its antecedents and consequences. Third, we present the procedure for the relationship orientation scale development and refinement using a 3-stage iterative process adopted from Jaworski and Kohli (1993; 1996). Finally, we will present the model, variable operationalizations, and methodology to be used for the empirical validation of the RO scale and RO-performance model.