Relationship Marketing in International Marketing/Sales Channels

Master Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Economics / Business, grade: A, University of Bradford (TiasNimbas Business School), 130 entries in the bibliography, language: English, comment: "A clear focus with well defined research questions and a clearly justified research method." The work reflects a "considerable amount of work and thinking () The issues at the heart of the subject have been clearly identified and [have been] explored with a critical eye. () The student adopted a strongly evaluative approach and has not fallen into the trap of simply accepting what others have said. The author developed a number of models for himself" (Prof. Colin Gilligan, Sheffield Hallam University) , abstract: In addressing the intellectual and pragmatic challenges of marketing in the early 1990's Webster (1992) proposed two thrusts within research: "The first is to develop an expanded view of marketing within the firm, one that specifically addresses the role of marketing in firms that go to market through multiple partnerships. [...]. The second is to develop a base of empirical research that broadens our understanding of the forces leading to the development of long-term customer relationships, strategic partnerships with vendors, [...] and the issues involved in creating, managing, and dissolving these partnerships over time". While Tuten and Urban (2001:150) hold that "Webster's charge still provides guidance" in the new millennium and encourage further research. Among the identified needs is a more comprehensive model of relationship success than has been previously proposed. Within this stream relationship marketing (RM) has been marked to be a new paradigm able to provide answers for the new reality. Still, confusion remains about what exactly RM is and how it can help achieve superior performance through the attainment of competitive advantages. A basic reason for the confusion arises from the academic disagreement about the constituent elements and thus the vario