An Evolutionary Psychology View of Forgiveness: Individuals, Groups, and Culture

We review the logic of an evolutionary perspective on forgiveness, highlighting how insight into the likely function of forgiveness--solving adaptive problems related to acquiring and maintaining social relationships--has productively guided research and theory. A combination of experimental, longitudinal, cross-sectional, and cross-cultural evidence supports the claim that victims’ perceptions of harmdoers’ relationship value and exploitation causally influence whether or not victims forgive harmdoers. We also review the nascent literature on the topic of intergroup forgiveness, and consider how the concepts associated with interpersonal forgiveness, such as apologies, relationship value, and exploitation risk might help us understand forgiveness between groups, cultures, and societies. Finally, we explore the intersection of evolutionary and cultural perspectives on forgiveness, and consider how concepts from these two research traditions might be integrated to help us understand forgiveness even better.

How core, technical and social components of business relationship value drive customer satisfaction and loyalty in high tech B2B market

Purpose This paper aims to investigate to what extent core, technical and social components of relationship value influence customer satisfaction and loyalty in the high technology business to business (B2B) markets. Design/methodology/approach Seven attributes of a high-technology buyer-seller relationship are identified representing the core, technical and social nature of relationship value. A conceptual model is proposed in which customer satisfaction mediates between the relationship value components and the two aspects of customer loyalty – attitudinal and behavioural. The empirical study is conducted in India employing 127 high technology customers. Structural equation modelling and path analysis is used to test the hypothesized linkages and examine the impact of different components. Findings Technical and social components of value influence customer satisfaction to a greater extent than the core components. Whilst behavioural loyalty is more driven by core components, attitudinal loyalty is more influenced by the social component. Satisfaction mediates the links between relationship value components and the two aspects of loyalty. Research limitations/implications Future research could test the modelled linkages in different countries and using larger samples and investigate the supplier perspective. Practical implications The paper provides useful implications for high tech product suppliers to improve their relationship with their customers. Suppliers must develop collaborative product/technology development projects and explore opportunities for personal relationships/rapport building with their customers, whilst delivering a quality product at a competitive price. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper is the first in B2B literature to provide an insight of how the different components of relationship value vary in influencing satisfaction and loyalty in a high technology B2B buyer-seller relationship.

Experimental evidence that apologies promote forgiveness by communicating relationship value

Robust evidence supports the importance of apologies for promoting forgiveness. Yet less is known about how apologies exert their effects. Here, we focus on their potential to promote forgiveness by way of increasing perceptions of relationship value. We used a method for directly testing these causal claims by manipulating both the independent variable and the proposed mediator. Namely, we use a 2 (Apology: yes vs. no) × 2 (Value: high vs. low) concurrent double-randomization design to test whether apologies cause forgiveness by affecting the same causal pathway as relationship value. In addition to supporting this causal claim, we also find that apologies had weaker effects on forgiveness when received from high-value transgressors, suggesting that the forgiveness-relevant information provided by apologies is redundant with relationship value. Taken together, these findings from a rigorous methodological paradigm help us parse out how apologies promote relationship repair.

An Investigation Of Family Culture In Family Firms’ Performance In Retailer-Vendor Strategic Partnerships

This research proposes a model to measure the effect of family culture on firm performance in family business retailer-vendor strategic partnerships. Prior research that has contributed to the development of the discourse on family culture, organizational culture, family and relationship value, commitment, and trust will be analyzed. Eight hypotheses are presented, four of which are an extension of prior research. The model ratifies a positive relationship between family culture and performance, especially when considering the successor generation. Since the founders of the firm are the personification of the family culture itself, for this group, family culture does not positively influence performance. The outcome of this research will illustrate not only the effects of family culture in family firms’ performance, but also the impact of relationship and behavioral factors in business.

An Investigation Of Family Culture In Family Firms’ Performance In Retailer-Vendor Strategic Partnerships

This research proposes a model to measure the effect of family culture on firm performance in family business retailer-vendor strategic partnerships. Prior research that has contributed to the development of the discourse on family culture, organizational culture, family and relationship value, commitment, and trust will be analyzed. Eight hypotheses are presented, four of which are an extension of prior research. The model ratifies a positive relationship between family culture and performance, especially when considering the successor generation. Since the founders of the firm are the personification of the family culture itself, for this group, family culture does not positively influence performance. The outcome of this research will illustrate not only the effects of family culture in family firms’ performance, but also the impact of relationship and behavioral factors in business.

Digital healthcare retail: role of presence in creating patients' experience

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to empirically examine the impact of technology-enabled service co-creation on patients' service patronage behaviour in healthcare retailing. The first objective is to examine the mediating roles of spatial presence and co-presence in the relationship between technology enabled co-creation and service experience. The second objective is to investigate if healthcare service experience impacts patients' relationship value with hospitals and subsequent patronage intention.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from a sample of 516 customers of three leading hospitals in India during the social isolation period of COVID-19. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling.FindingsThe study results demonstrate that customers' favourably perceived technology-enabled co-creation generates feelings of spatial presence and co-presence in the technology-enabled platform. The feeling of presence enhances patients' health care service experiences which in turn predict their relationship value perceptions towards the healthcare service provider. Co-presence dominates as a mediator in terms of magnitude over spatial presence. The favourable value perception positively impacts patients' intention to come back to the same hospital.Research limitations/implicationsThe study uses cross-sectional data, which does not incorporate any temporal variations in the investigated relationships. The study does not account for differences in government vs. private undertakings of healthcare system.Practical implicationsThe findings envisage a digital healthcare retail system, where hospitals can enhance patients' perceptions of healthcare service experience, relational value and re-patronage intention, based on the digital mediated environment design elements, i.e. spatial presence and co-presence. As co-presence is a dominant factor, ensuring that human healthcare experts (rather than technology based e-service elements like chatbots) participate in healthcare service co-creation is of prime importance to provide enriching service experience to the patients.Originality/valueThe value of the research lies in extending the theories of presence, UTAUT and S-O-R to understand digital healthcare retailing, in order to identify the mechanism of how online co-creative platform can generate hospital patronage behaviour among patients through the serial mediation of presence, augmented service experience and relationship value.

Explored Customer Participation and Value

Emerging marketing perspectives show that customer participation creates new opportunities for value creation. A perspective in the marketing section should be highlighted, a new opportunity must be emphasized, and customer participation should be used as a means to define the relationship benefits through their participation. The goal of customer participation is to create a high-value service process by creating cooperation with customers. This study describes and develops hypothesis verification. In the context of professional financial services in Taiwan, this study explores the effect of customer participation on value creation and satisfaction from customer and employee perspectives. It also analyzes the effects of different customer capabilities and employees’ emotional intelligence. The source of data collection is a total of 383 customer questionnaires from domestic financial institutions of two types of bank (public and private) to verify (1) how customer participation affects customer satisfaction and employee job satisfaction through relationship value creation, (2) how customer ability affects the relationship between value creation and satisfaction, and (3) how employees’ emotional intelligence affects the relationship between relationship value creation and job satisfaction. This study uses the structural equation model to verify the research hypothesis and obtains the following results through empirical research: 1. Customer participation affects customer satisfaction through relationship value creation. 2. Customer participation does not completely create positive employee relationship value, which may increase work pressure. 3. Interference results show that customer ability can promote customer satisfaction, whereas employee emotional intelligence does not necessarily affect the relationship between employee relationship value creation and job satisfaction. These results contribute to the banking industry. Customer participation can promote value creation by arranging customers and financial specialists to have an appropriate interactive relationship and professional services