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The purpose of this research is to explore the impact of online service quality on the level of customer delight and on the development of customer relationships.

A self‐complete survey was used to collect data from a convenience sample of 200 Australian respondents who use online banking. Factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used to test the proposed model of relationships.

Online service quality has no impact on customer delight, e‐trust or the development of stronger relationships with customers. It does have a relationship to e‐loyalty. However, the “efficiency” dimension of online service quality is related to e‐trust and also indirectly to relationship strength through e‐trust. The “personal need” and “site organization” dimensions of online service quality are related to e‐loyalty, with “personal needs” exhibiting the strongest impact. Customer delight has no relationship to online service quality, nor e‐trust, relationship strength or e‐loyalty.

Generalizability is the main issue. Further research is required to confirm results and examine the identified lack of association between customer delight and e‐loyalty. Further exploration of all scales is recommended. Online service quality is not a sufficient method for retaining customers through relationship building and does not result in delighting customers.

Online service quality is not enough to develop strong relationships with bank customers. Banks can achieve customer loyalty through attending to their personal needs in online situations as well as providing a well organized site. Alternatively, if banks wish to develop strong relationships with customers, they must provide user‐friendly and efficient websites while also developing trust in the website. Relationship building and e‐loyalty appears to represent different things to different customers. Therefore, online service quality alone is not a sufficient means of building strong relationships and retaining customers.

Results provide important insights into the impact of online service quality on relationship building with customers. Also online service quality for banks appears different to other previously researched retail settings and has different associated outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the measurement of e‐service quality for e‐retail banking, the importance of e‐service quality dimensions to e‐retail bank customers, and the relationship between e‐service quality and customer satisfaction.

Results are drawn from a self‐completed survey of a convenience sample of 200 Australian respondents who regularly use online banking facilities. Factor analysis and regression analysis are used to ascertain factor structure and determine the impact of e‐service quality dimensions on satisfaction.

A four‐factor solution (E‐ServQual) represented by “personal needs”, “site organisation”, “user‐friendliness” and “efficiency” is found, with all factors rated as important. E‐ServQual is found to be a predictor of overall customer satisfaction with banking performance, but “efficiency” is not found to be predictive. Overall satisfaction is lower than overall e‐service quality.

The Australian sample limits generalisability. Future research should investigate the importance of human interaction in the provision of quality service, re‐test the developed measure with new data, explore the e‐service quality construct further, and investigate its relationship with customer satisfaction and the exposed “unknown” negative influences on customer satisfaction, in other international settings.

The paper informs knowledge gaps related to the measurement and structure of e‐service quality, its importance and impact on customer satisfaction. A more holistic measure of e‐service quality is supported. Good e‐service performance impacts customer satisfaction positively, but does not override unsatisfactory performance in other areas. Banks need to be mindful that online service provision is not sufficient for ensuring customer satisfaction with their overall service.

Practitioners argue that the way they treat their employees has an impact on firm success. However, they frequently do not equate this with relationship building. On the other hand, the academic relationship marketing literature does highlight internal relationships as having an important impact on external customer relationships. However, this relationship suffers from a lack of academic empirical evidence. Neither seems to recognize the knowledge of the other leading to incongruence between marketing theory and practice. The purpose of this paper is to bring the two literature streams together demonstrating that the practitioners are talking about, and practising, relationship marketing.

Exploration and comparison of the academic and practitioner literature bases to elaborate on the value of relationship building within organizations.

Competitive advantage can be attained through development of a relationship‐building culture which includes building relationships inside the organization as well as customer relationships. In fact, successful customer relationships rely on successful internal relationships.

A broad research agenda is outlined for understanding the nature of internal relationships and their impact on a firm's success.

Organizational success can be gained through building strong internal relationships and the development of a relationship‐building organizational culture.

Links practitioner cases and reflections to the concept of relationship marketing, demonstrating further how relationship marketing activities provide a competitive advantage.

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a self-reporting tool: the hospitality employee’ satisfaction index.

The 15-item instrument presented in this study was developed through an examination of the extant literature and seven focus groups representing the hospitality industry. The instrument was piloted online with 1,000 hospitality employees, refined and then distributed online to 9,000 hospitality employees.

Factor analysis extracted three factors (career advancement, control and variety and relationships), and reliability analysis (Cronbach’s alpha) indicated high internal consistency. A stepwise multiple regression revealed that the control and variety factor related most strongly to overall job satisfaction, followed by relationships and career advancement factors, confirming that in the context of the hospitality industry, these factors were important in the measurement of job satisfaction. Control and variety was significantly related to the intention to stay in the job, and career advancement and control and variety were related to the intention to stay in the hospitality industry.

The data were gathered in Australia and were tested nationally to support the robustness of the instrument. Therefore, the hospitality industry can use this instrument as a generic index to evaluate the job satisfaction levels of employees.

This specifically designed hospitality job satisfaction instrument can be used to evaluate the job satisfaction of employees at all levels and can be used in the development of a benchmark. This index is the first of its kind to be tested in the broader hospitality context, including accommodation, restaurants, coffee shops, fast food, clubs, hotels, convention, sporting venues, catering and institutional catering.

The purpose is to present the results of exploratory research which analysed firm‐employee relationship strength from the employee perspective. Three main research questions were explored: What indicators should be used to measure strong firm‐employee relationships? How important do employees see relationships to be in the work environment? and how do employees define relationship strength?

Qualitative research in the form of focus groups was utilised. Four focus groups of employees from medium to large regional and national Australian companies were held in a large Australian regional city.

Employees view relationships as being very important in the work environment. The findings revealed a greater degree of consistency between employees' viewpoints about important relationship elements and non‐marketing literature. Important elements found were cooperation, empowerment, communication, attachment, shared goals and values, trust and respect. The emphasis on commitment as a key relationship indicator was not supported by the findings. The findings are summarised in a proposed model of relationship strength, positing commitment as a relationship strength outcome. Employees defined relationship strength in terms of the identified elements.

This research enables commencement of examination of the value of internal relationships through empirical examination of the proposed model.

Management is informed as to what makes the best work environment from the perspective of employees.

This paper fulfills an identified gap in the literature in relation to the ability to measure internal firm relationships. It also clarifies the confusing literature on relationship elements, and it posits a model for the empirical assessment of firm‐employee relationship strength.

Trust is the basis of business relationships. The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of trust in the context of the relationship between shopping centre management and retail tenants, primarily from the retailer perspective, as a first test of trust in such business‐to‐business relationships. A contrast is made between neighbourhood and regional centres to determine if centre size affects trust development.

Quantitative research methods are used. The focus is a sample of 201 retail tenants in Australian shopping centres. Psychometric properties were assessed for all multi‐item scales used to capture variables of interest. Multiple regression analysis is used to explain trust in terms of five key influences: power of the centre manager (as a negative relationship), empowerment of the retailer, flexibility, responsiveness and the shopping centre brand.

Empowerment, restraint of power and responsiveness are the main determinants of trust. Power is especially critical in regional shopping centres. The shopping centre brand and flexibility play important support roles in neighbourhood centres.

The lack of comparable studies limits the generalizability of the results to other countries.

Centre managers, in larger planned shopping centres, who want greater retail tenant trust, should not demonstrate their power overtly in, say, rent negotiations. They could also learn from small centres about being flexible and projecting a more unified centre brand.

This empirical study probes the antecedents of trust in Australian shopping centres, a previously neglected area in the shopping centre literature. The paper is unique because it contrasts neighbourhood and regional shopping centres.

Positive organizational scholarship in healthcare (POSH) suggests that, to promote widespread improvement within health services, focusing on the good, the excellent, and the brilliant is as important as conventional approaches that focus on the negative, the problems, and the failures. POSH offers different opportunities to learn from and build resilient cultures of safety, innovation, and change. It is not separate from tried and tested approaches to health service improvement – but rather, it approaches this improvement differently. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

POSH, appreciative inquiry (AI) and reflective practice were used to inform an exploratory investigation of what is good, excellent, or brilliant health service management.

The researchers identified new characteristics of good healthcare and what it might take to have brilliant health service management, elucidated and refined POSH, and identified research opportunities that hold potential value for consumers, practitioners, and policymakers.

The secondary data used in this study offered limited contextual information.

This approach is a platform from which to: identify, investigate, and learn about brilliant health service management; and inform theory and practice.

POSH can help to reveal what consumers and practitioners value about health services and how they prefer to engage with these services.

Using POSH, this paper examines what consumers and practitioners value about health services; it also illustrates how brilliance can be theorized into health service management research and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether multiple stakeholders imbue a single or multiple meanings to a city brand.

The branding literature hints at multiple stakeholders but most studies take a single stakeholder perspective. A two‐stage quantitative study was used to examine similarities and differences between two stakeholder groups. The context for the study is city branding.

The evidence suggests that different external stakeholders do have different brand meanings associated to a city brand. Each stakeholder group applies their own filter to interpret the meaning of the city brand. Essentially, a new conceptualisation of the city brand is provided.

Although the samples are reasonably large, it is important to apply the framework to other city brands to test for generalisability. Future research might also test the filter concept in the more general context of corporate branding.

Organisations need to recognise the multi‐faceted, multiple meanings of the brand as a whole. Corporate communication requires adjustment from a convergence approach to one that recognises different brand purposes for each stakeholder group. The ideas are readily usable in not‐for‐profit communities.

The paper joins a small number of studies that challenge the conventional wisdom that convergence of brand meaning across stakeholder groups is an ideal state. The paper develops a filter concept as a way of showing that different stakeholder groups might use a different filter or lens to interpret a city brand.