The Effects Of Relationship Orientation And Internet Involvement On Relationship Quality

Technology is one of the most important factors which influence marketing practice. Utilization of a new technology will affect consumers' knowledge, attitudes and behaviors, thus change marketing concept, strategies and methods of firms. Therefore, one of the paramount research topics for both researchers and practitioners is to understand how technologies affect marketing practices and how to integrate technologies into marketing. Nowadays, great developments occur both in technology and marketing fields. On the one hand, Internet is the new result of IT development, which becomes one of the most important technological factors instantly. On the other hand, one hot topic in marketing is relationship marketing which attracts most eyes in both academe and practice. Then, one important topic contemporary marketing researchers face is how the Internet affects relationship marketing practice.Although some researches have explored the relationship between the Internet and relationship marketing, little effort has made to learn the influencing mechanism of the Internet on relationship marketing. Therefore, this dissertation will study on such research question with empirical methods, which will fill the gaps in academic research and is expected to provide theoretical base to practices.This dissertation will make clear on definition and meaning of relationship orientation basing on literature review and depth interview with marketers and managers. Furthermore, this construct is regarded as a second-level one, which includes shared value and activities which is formed by information activities and emotion activities. Then, measurements will be developed for relationship orientation shared value, information activities and emotion activities and structure of relationship orientation is also confirmed. Thereafter, basing on literature, this dissertation considers that there are two-side effects of the Internet on relationship orientation and the double effects are the results of the Internet users' activities with the Internet. Accordingly, three concepts are presented here, which are firm Internet involvement, customer Internet involvement, and industry Internet involvement. At last, research model is presented including firm Internet involvement, customer Internet involvement, industry Internet involvement, relationship orientation, and relationship quality. Data are collected by questionnaire and analyzed to test the research model.The contributions of this dissertation are as following: firstly, relationship orientation construct is conceptualized and operationalized, which will provide research base for empirical study in relationship marketing field, and contribute to implementation of relationship marketing concept in practices. Secondly, measurements of relationship orientation including share value, information activities, and emotion activities. Thirdly, two-side effects of the Internet on relationship orientation are discussed and detailed into three influencing sources. Consequently, three new construct, firm Internet involvement, customer Internet involvement, industry Internet involvement, are presented. Fourthly, research model of the Internet influencing on relationship orientation and relationship quality are presented.