Social Bonds in Clients' Business Relationships with Professional
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Social bonds in clients’ business relationships with professional service providers Ewa Krolikowska-Adamczyk A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement of the University of Greenwich for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2013 DECLARATION I certify that this work has not been accepted in substance for any degree and is not concurrently being submitted for any degree other than that of Doctor of Philosophy being studied at the University of Greenwich. I also declare that this work is the result of my own investigations except where otherwise indicated by references and that I have not plagiarised the work of others. Student’s Signature: ______________________________Date: _____________________ Supervisor’s Signature: ___________________________ Date: ____________________ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge and thank the following people who have made the completion of this thesis possible: Dr Sven Kuenzel, my first supervisor, for his advice, encouragement, good humour and patience throughout the process of writing this thesis. I thank also Dr Celia Stanworth, my second supervisor, for her advice, feedback and kind encouragement and Gill Haxell, the Business School’s Research Degrees Administrator, for her excellent support with administrative matters. My sincere thanks go to Robert Adamczyk, Dr Agnieszka Herdan, David Preston and Jon Sibson for their help in facilitating contact with interviewees for my research and to the interviewees themselves who provided me with a valuable insight into their client relationships. Thanks also to Reed Exhibitions for allowing me to collect data at EIBTM in Barcelona in November 2012. I also appreciate the time of everyone who completed a questionnaire during my survey. My deepest appreciation goes to my parents, Elżbieta and Walenty Królikowski, who have supported me in so many ways throughout my life; to my daughter Lara, who always asks good questions and keeps me on my toes; and to my partner, Martin, for his kindness, patience and for keeping me refreshed with many cups of tea during long evenings spent in front of my computer. Finally, to Janet Bohdanowicz, RIP, my friend and mentor – you gave me my first lecturing opportunity, you encouraged me to study at the University of Greenwich and you were always a source of inspiration and good advice. You were not able to finish your own thesis so this one is dedicated to your memory. iii ABSTRACT The emergence of Relationship Marketing around 40 years ago has led to an improvement in our understanding and management of business relationships through the study of relationship constructs such as loyalty. Researchers have also found a number of different bonds in business relationships. One of these is social bonds which develop between individuals and can impact positively on long-term client relationships at an organisational level. However social bonds have suffered from a lack of clarity in definition, identification and measurement. Scale development has been limited as most researchers view the social bond as a unidimensional construct and fail to provide solid theoretical support for their scale. There is a need to define the concept and build a multidimensional scale of social bonds using a comprehensive theoretical framework. Researchers such as Barnes (1994) suggest that marketers can learn from social psychologists who have studied relationships extensively. Indeed social-psychology theories such as social exchange theory have been widely used in relationship marketing studies. Attachment theory is relatively new to business relationships, having emerged from the study of child-parent relationships but has been applied more recently to explain customer attachment. Another promising theory is Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love (1986) which can be used to identify potential bonds based on liking. This study uses attachment and liking theories as the theoretical framework for developing a social bond scale in the context of clients’ business relationships with professional service providers. These relationships have been substantially under-researched and provide a relevant context for the research due to the benefits of strong interpersonal bonds in a pure service environment like professional services. A multi-method research design was adopted consisting of qualitative in-depth interviews with professional service providers and a questionnaire survey of senior decision makers in the hotel industry. The study’s contributions include a greater understanding of social bonds, attachment and liking in business relationships. The research found two distinct social bonds thereby confirming that the construct is multidimensional. A number of demographic and contextual variables were found to have an impact on social bond strength. These findings have led to guidelines on managing client relationships for professional service providers and organisations. iv CONTENTS Declaration ii Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Theoretical Overview 1 1.2 Professional Services Business Relationships 5 1.3 Research Question, Aim, Objectives and Research Design 6 1.4 Potential Contributions 7 1.5 Structure of the Thesis 8 Chapter 2 Literature Review 10 Introduction 10 2.1 The Context of the Study 12 2.1.1 Relationship Marketing and Business Relationships 12 2.1.2 Relationship Structure 14 2.1.3 Relationships in Service Organisations 16 2.1.4 The UK Hotel Industry 18 2.1.5 Professional Services 20 2.2 Relationship Bonds and Social Bonds 23 2.2.1 Relationship Bonds 23 2.2.2 Social Bonds 25 2.2.3 Defining Social Bonds 26 2.2.4 Bonds in Professional Services Relationships 31 2.3 Social Bonds: Characteristics, Demographics and Outcomes 32 2.3.1 Characteristics of Social Bonds 32 2.3.1.1 Reciprocal or from the Client’s Perspective 33 2.3.1.2 Social Bonding as a Marketing Activity 34 2.3.1.3 Positive and Negative Bonds 37 2.3.1.4 Strong and Weak Bonds 38 2.3.1.5 Levels of Bonding 39 2.3.1.6 Relationship-specific or Mobile 40 v 2.3.2 Demographic/Contextual Variables and Social Bonds 41 2.3.2.1 Length of Relationship 41 2.3.2.2 Gender, Age and Position 41 2.3.2.3 Culture 42 2.3.2.4 Type of Service and Company Size 43 2.3.3 Outcomes of Social Bonds 44 2.3.3.1 Social Bonds as an Antecedent to Value 44 2.3.3.2 Social Bonds as an Antecedent to Customer Retention 45 2.3.3.3 Social Bonds as an Antecedent to Loyalty and WOM 45 2.3.3.4 Social Bonds as an Antecedent to Trust 46 2.3.3.5 Social Bonds as an Antecedent to Satisfaction 46 2.4 The Theoretical Framework 47 2.4.1 Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love 48 2.4.1.1. Intimacy 49 2.4.1.2 Passion 49 2.4.1.3 Commitment 50 2.4.2 Attachment Theory 52 2.4.3 Combining Sternberg’s Theory with Attachment Theory 57 2.4.4 Alternative Theories 60 2.4.4.1 Social Exchange Theory 60 2.4.4.2 Hirschi’s Social Bonding Theory 61 Conclusion 63 Chapter 3 Preliminary Scale Development 65 Introduction 65 3.1 Existing Scales measuring the Social Bond 68 3.1.1 Social Bonds as a dimension of Relational Bonds (Smith, 1998) 68 3.1.2 Social Bonds as part of Perceived Service Quality (Patterson and Smith, 2001a) 69 3.1.3 Social Bond dimension in a scale of Relational Bonds (Lin et al, 2003) 70 3.1.4 Social Bond as a measure of Buyer-Seller Relationships (Crotts et al, 1998) 72 vi 3.1.5 Social Bond as part of Relationship Bonding (Rodriguez and Wilson, 2002) 72 3.1.6 Social Bonding as part of Relational Bonding (Dash et al, 2009) 73 3.1.7 Social Bond Scale (Venetis and Ghauri, 2004) 74 3.1.8 Social Bonding tactics as part of Relationship Bonding tactics (Liang and Wang, 2007) 75 3.1.9 Social Bonding Scale (Mavondo and Rodrigo, 2001) 75 3.1.10 Social Bond Scale (Peltier and Scovotti, 2004) 76 3.1.11 Social Bonds (Cater and Zabkar, 2009) 77 3.1.12 Social Bonds Scale (Perry et al, 2002) 78 3.1.13 Scales not included in the Analysis 79 3.1.13.1 Social Bonds as part of Customer Bonding (Gounaris and Venetis, 2002) 79 3.1.13.2 Social Bonds as part of Customer Relationship (Theo and Swierczek, 2008) 80 3.2 Stages of Scale Development 81 3.2.1 Stage 1 Defining the Construct to be measured 81 3.2.1.1 Proposed Definition 82 3.2.1.2 Content 82 3.2.1.3 Setting and Population 83 3.2.2 Stage 2 Generating a Sample of Items 84 3.2.2.1 Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love scale 84 3.2.2.2 The Social Bond of Intimacy 85 3.2.2.3 The Social Bond of Passion 89 3.2.2.3 The Social Bond of Affective Commitment 92 3.2.2.4 The Social Bond of Security 94 Conclusion 96 Chapter 4 Methodology 99 Introduction 99 4.1 Research Paradigm 99 4.2 Mixed Methods Research 105 4.3 The Effect of Theory on Research Design 106 4.4 Phase 1 Qualitative Research 111 vii 4.4.1 Definitions and Purpose 111 4.4.2 Research Approach 112 4.4.3 Interview Development 114 4.4.3.1 The Semi-Structured Face-to-Face Interview 115 4.4.3.2 The Interview Guide 117 4.4.3.3 The Pilot Study 120 4.4.4 Main Interview Research 121 4.4.4.1 Interview Sample Size 121 4.4.4.2 Sampling Methods 122 4.4.4.3 Interviewee Recruitment and Interview Process 126 4.4.5 Qualitative Research Limitations 128 4.5 Phase 2 Quantitative Research 130 4.5.1 Definition and Purpose 130 4.5.2 Research Strategy 130 4.5.3 Questionnaire Development 131 4.5.4 Mode of Questionnaire Distribution 133 4.5.5 Response Rate and Sample Size 134 4.5.6 Pilot Study 138 4.5.7 Main Survey Research 142 4.5.7.1 Online Survey in E-Newsletter 142 4.5.7.2 Self-Administered Questionnaire Survey at EIBTM 143 4.5.7.3 Postal Survey of the Hotel Industry 144 4.5.8 Quantitative Research Limitations