Relationship Marketing: Investigating the processes of creating and evaluating value

The development and management of long term successful relationships, in a business to business context, is widely accepted within the relationship marketing literature to add value (Baxter and Matear, 2004). This dissertation examines relationship marketing in a relatively unexplored context, and explores value creation through the development, management and importantly evaluation of relationships within an education setting. Using a case study organisation as the basis of the research, an in-depth investigation of a range of stakeholder perceptions, within a Higher Education context, was undertaken. Depth interviews explored relationship marketing practice, as a means to establish the relevance and application of the literature to this sector, and the processes of value creation within the case study organisation's network. Accepting that relationship marketing implementation was shown to be embryonic in the case study organisation, and in fact in all stakeholder organisations too, this study revealed some important nuances in the underlying relationship characteristics and in the values underpinning practice. These included the importance of shared values, public accountability and transparency in this context. The study confirmed the importance examining the creation of value within a network (including customers, employees, and other stakeholders). Additionally it confirmed that the complex nature of the relationships contained within this network involving multiple and sometimes conflicting roles, arguably specific to this sector, might have implications both for managers within the sector and for researchers in this field. Context and environment were therefore found to be important factors in understanding relationship marketing strategy and value creation in this sector