Nor Azila Mohd Noor

The Role of Individual Differences in Promoting Front Liners to Become Customer-Oriented: A Case of the Hotel Industry in Malaysia

As other service industry, hoteliers are highly relying on their contact employees known as front liners to deliver services to customers. Therefore, the behaviors of front liners can influence customers perceptions of a hotel service. Customer-orientation behavior of employees has become a prime variable of interest for organizations wishing to successfully market their products. However, previous researches on this area have stressed the need for a better understanding of the process relating to customer orientation behavior and its influencing factors. This paper investigates the influence of organizational commitment, self-efficacy and intrinsic job motivation of front liners on customer-orientation behavior.

The Impact of Relational Marketing Bonds on Retailers' Economic and Social Satisfaction

In the literature on channel relationships, there is a complex and hostile relationship between manufacturers and large retailers, especially given the growing strength of retail organizations in the global context. This study thus examines (a) the impacts of relational marketing bonds on economic and social satisfaction and (b) the role of economic satisfaction in the relationships between relational marketing bonds and social satisfaction in the manufacturer–retailer relationship. This quantitative study presents empirical findings from a survey of 140 large retailers using partial least squares. The results revealed that organizational bonds, but not interpersonal bonds, were crucial in affecting retailers economic satisfaction. Meanwhile, interpersonal bonds were crucial in affecting retailers social satisfaction. The results also provided strong evidence of the relationship between retailers economic and social satisfaction as well as the crucial role of economic satisfaction as a mediator between organizational bonds and social satisfaction. Theoretical and managerial implications are extracted from these findings.