Business Relationships
Business Relationships
Norwich Business School research in this area is directed towards the conceptual development and empirical testing of the link between business relationships and business performance. Professor Nikolaos Tzokas's research makes an important contribution to how inter-organisational and customer-based relationships can be harnessed to improve new product development processes and sales efforts. His research confirms the importance of relationship marketing in innovative firms and identifies the various competencies required by firms to succeed in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The impact of the Internet on marketing and market-based relationships is addressed further by the work of Professor Stuart Barnes. In one paper, Stuart draws from a survey of 1,011 consumers from France, Germany and the US to generate a customer typology for the Internet. Further work on electronic commerce and its implications for business behaviour has uniquely employed the WebQual 2.0 instrument to evaluate cyber-bookshops. In another study, Stuart is the first to examine the iMode mobile data communications service in Japan. Most recently, he has collaborated with a colleague to explore consumer perceptions and attitudes towards mobile phone advertising via SMS. This research identifies four factors which impact on mobile phone advertising acceptance and provides guidance for marketers.
Professor Naresh R. Pandits interdisciplinary (economics/economic geography/strategy/international business) research on business clustering also focuses on the importance of relationships, traded and non-traded, on firm performance. It grew out of econometric work that was amongst the first to verify empirically that firm growth and new firm entry are both a function of cluster strength. A subsequent ESRC-supported study together with Swann of Nottingham University and Gary Cook of Liverpool University was completed in October 2002. Employing a comparative case study methodology, it investigated the structures and mechanisms within important broadcasting and financial services clusters that led to the economic performance which the earlier econometric work detected. Joint funding by the ESRC and the Corporation of London was secured for a third study that gauged the importance of cluster benefits in the City of London financial services cluster. The study has informed policy-making at the Corporation of London and at the highest level within the Bank of England by shedding light on the manner and magnitude of firm interaction in the cluster, the characteristics of the cluster that aid the competitiveness of incumbent firms and the economic problems associated with clustering. In addition to a report for the Corporation of London, this work has resulted in publication in one of the very top economic geography journals. In 2003, a grant from the British Academy was won for a project that replicates the ESRC/Corporation of London financial services study for the broadcasting industry in London and in March 2005 a further grant was secured from the North West Regional Development Agency to investigate financial and professional services clustering in North West England. This work is being extended to explain the attractiveness of clusters to multinational broadcasting and financial services firms.
