The Key Role of HR Policies and Practices in Implementing a Relationship Marketing Orientation
The limitations of the transactional approach to marketing in services and industrial settings gave rise to a relationship marketing (RM) paradigm (Grönroos 1997), which emphasizes building, maintaining, and enhancing relationships between the company and
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PROBLEM AND METHOD Despite the consensus in the literature regarding the need for a supportive corporate culture to favor the implementation of a RMO, and the key role that HRM plays in this process, there is extremely scarce empirical academic research on this topic. This leads to ambiguity on how managers can effectively implement a RMO in their firms. Sin et al. (2002 p.193) make a call to conduct research on this area and to clarify this ambiguity, as “managers need to know how they can be instrumental in shaping the RMO of their firms”. Although authors have discussed they key corporate values that could promote a relational orientation (Grönroos 1994; Iglesias, Sauquet, and Montaña 2011) the main shortcoming of these studies is that they only focus on the corporate culture that can facilitate a RMO, but do not place emphasis on the HRM policies and practices that managers can promote to reinforce this corporate culture. Additionally, within the specific field of relationship marketing, research by Perrien, Filiatrault, and Ricard (1993) suggest that the ineffective implementation of a relationship approach is mainly due to lack of emphasis on HRM. Therefore, the objective of this research is to identify the emergent internally consistent HR policies and practices that define, develop and reinforce a corporate culture that promotes and facilitates a RMO. As there is an evident lack of empirical research on the topic, this study aims to allow theory to emerge from the collected data. Thus, grounded theory method of analyzing the data seems the best possible approach, as it is specially recommended for cases where insufficient prior research exists (Glaser and Strauss 1967). The authors conducted in depth interviews with 58 individuals at varying organizational levels in the Spanish hospitality industry. Company A was the first to be selected and 35 in depth interviews were conducted with top-level managers, middle managers and front-line employees. In order to enhance the findings company B was selected as the second case. As a contrast case, company Z was selected, because it is a well performing company, but that has still not implemented a clear RMO. A total of 58 in depth interviews were conducted, in eight hotels and corporate offices spread throughout Spain. The data was collected and analyzed iteratively and simultaneously until saturation criterion was reached (Strauss and Corbin 2007). Additionally, 400 hours of observation was undertaken and internal and external communication material was analyzed, in order to triangulate the data. Findings The analysis and interpretation of the data using NVivo software lead to the development of higher-level categories, which indicate that there are five key HR policies implemented and shared by corporate brands A and B that facilitate the development of a RM oriented corporate culture, as compared to brand Z. Recruitment Recruitment practices vary based on the job positions. However, what is evident in all the cases is that both companies A and B have a recruitment
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