A systems view of relationship dissolution
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Ahmed Beloucif* is a lecturer in marketing at Aberdeen Business School. He has lectured for 20 years at undergraduate, postgraduate and managerial level and carried out consultancy and training work. He also has previous experience in teaching marketing to insurance companies. His current research interests are in relationship marketing in professional services.
Bill Donaldson is a Professor of Marketing at Aberdeen Business School with research interests in sales and relationship marketing. A second edition of his book on Strategic Market Relationships, published by Wiley, is planned for 2007.
Michaela Waddell is a graduate of The Robert Gordon University and an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. She is Marketing Manager for a leading UK Media Company, AVC Media Enterprises Ltd.,
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Although the relationship paradigm has come to prominence in marketing theory and practice in recent years, relationships vary in many ways but particularly by type and duration. Various scholars have attempted to describe and explain relationships and a continuing theme in the literature is the stages in a relationship. Emanating from both *Correspondence: Aberdeen Business School, The Robert Gordon University, Garthdee Road, Aberdeen AB10 7QE, UK Tel: + 44 1224 263800; e-mail: [email protected]
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Journal of Financial Services Marketing
a US perspective1 and a European vantage,2 stages have been identified and explained in different situations and contexts.3,4 In this paper, the financial services sector, in particular the client–broker relationship between small, medium enterprises (SME) and their insurance brokers, is used to identify stages in their relationships. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, there has been an increased interest towards understanding business relationship termination.5,6 The number of relationship termination studies has increased rapidly. Thus, a number of concepts referring to relationship ending have emerged, such as
Vol. 11, 1 30–48 © 2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1363-0539 $30.00 www.palgrave-journals.com/fsm
A systems view of relationship dissolution
dissolution, termination, switching and breakdown. Tahtinen and Halinen7 argue that the use of various conceptual languages is also a reflection of the different disciplinary backgrounds of the studies. Researchers are approaching relationship endings from different theoretical perspectives and producing knowledge based on different assumptions (p. 2). However, there has been hardly any research on relationship ending in the context of insurance brokerage services. This paper intends to limit itself to the ending of exchange relationships between an insurance broker and the corporate client. Stewart8 points out that As with all research, the choice of approach is determined by the researcher’s preferences, and their interpretation of the research problem. Either (or both) deductive or inductive approaches would be productive in building a stronger knowledge base of customer exit. Ab
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