Relationship marketing in agribusiness: a case study

Sirles, Hilary Joan

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Description

Title

Relationship marketing in agribusiness: a case study

Author(s)

Sirles, Hilary Joan

Issue Date

2015-04-27

Department of Study

Agricultural & Consumer Economics

Discipline

Agricultural & Applied Economics

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• relationship marketing
• agribusiness
• services industry
• industrial marketing
• trust
• commitment
• cooperation
• service
• concern
• interaction
• communication
• value

Abstract

The primary objective of this thesis research is to address the lack of primacy for relationship marketing in agriculture by providing an example, using the case study method, of exploratory research in relationship marketing within the agriculture industry. An embedded case study was conducted to take a preliminary, exploratory, and conservative first step among identifying relationship marketing in the agribusiness industry. The host organization, its employees, and their relationships were used to conduct the case study The relationship marketing literature is more or less structured around key themes: its definitions, constructs, relationship types, strategies, theory or economic contributions, and empirics. This case study is built around the acceptance and acknowledgement of these theoretical themes and propositions – utilizing key relationship marketing constructs as the foundation to develop an interview dialogue between myself and employees of the focal firm. The neutrality of questions asked within the interviews were developed to produce results that would explicitly describe the relationship marketing environment, via these employees’ relationships and responses, within this organization. After complete understanding and inductive coding of each interview transcript in its entirety, results from this case study were generated alongside the theoretical propositions suggested within the relationship marketing literature.

Graduation Semester

2015-5

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/78777

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2015 Hilary Sirles

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