Egyptian Electronic Government

Many developing countries’ governments have invested heavily in increasing the number of e-government projects. However, there is a lack of clear case material, which describes the potentialities and consequence experienced by governments trying to manage with this change. The Ministry of State for Administrative Development (MSAD) is the organization responsible for the e-Government program in Egypt since early 2004. This paper presents the findings of the CRM case study, one of the e-service projects led by MSAD. Semi-structured interviews have been used as primary data collection techniques. The findings of the study reveal that the main driver to the success of the project is changing the organisational culture and thinking. It is noticed there is an influence of the project on citizens’ encouragement for public participation as it was able to increase their satisfaction levels. Also, the findings emphasised the problems that face the overall e-government program in Egypt. They also explain the relationships among those identified problems of governmental e-service development.

Exploring Determinants Influencing the Intention to Use Mobile Payment Service

Mobile services are becoming increasingly commonplace in everyday life; however, Mobile payment (M-payment) is not among frequently used mobile services. The slowness of the diffusion of this service is the point of departure of the current research. The authors discuss why consumers are slow in adopting M-payment service and develop a proposed model that measures the customer’s attitude and intention to use this technology in Egypt. Different theories from diverse fields are reviewed to formulate the study’s conceptual framework. Empirical data were collected via an online survey for a sample of 490 students in “open education”, a type of e-distance learning. The results suggest that although the most important determinants influencing the customer’s attitude toward the service are perceived behavioral control and perceived usefulness, those influencing the intention to use it are perceived innovativeness, perceived expressiveness, facilitating condition, perceived usefulness, and social pressure. The results of the research differ from those of previous studies because of the effect of the Egyptian culture. Service providers can benefit from the results when formulating the marketing strategies to increase the usage of this service, improving mobile commerce.

Effectiveness of Customer Relationship Management Program in Insurance Companies

Customer relationship management in the insurance industry is in the nascent stage. Firms are framing new strategies to combat stiff competition. Public and private insurance companies are implementing customer relationship programs to attract more customers and retain existing customers. The objectives of this study are (1) to study the customer relationship management program of the Life Insurance Corporation of India, and (2) to assess the effectiveness of this customer relationship management program. The study is based on the opinion scores of 182 policyholders of Life Insurance Corporation of India, who have been with the company for more than the last five years. Based on the average opinion scores before and after the implementation of the Customer Relationship Management program, it was concluded that the program is effective, which was evidenced by the results obtained from statistical analysis (Paired sample t-test).

Trust and Long-Term Satisfaction within Asymmetric Business Relationships

This paper explores the nature of trust and satisfaction existing between service providers (large organizations) and a network of 47 distributors (small organizations) within the Kuwaiti telecommunications sector. Data was collected using a questionnaire based survey involving a convenience sample of 209 respondents representing 47 distributor outlets. The results show that the Kuwaiti telecommunications sector asymmetric relationship network was largely driven by cognitive input of trust, that is, technical competency was favored over affective input. Furthermore, there was a significant relationship between cognitive input and Long-term Satisfaction Disposition (LSD) and control input (i.e. use of power) and LSD. This indicates that trust, although favored, was not a condition for establishing long-term satisfaction within asymmetric business relationships. Finally, the influence of wasta (i.e. favoritism) and control input on trust are found to be insignificant.

A Cross-Cultural Study of Relationship Proneness and Its Implications for Relationship Marketing

This paper examines relationship proneness of consumers in a cross-cultural setting; specifically, the relationship proneness between Chinese and U.S. consumers of Generation Y (born from 1976 to 1995) and its effects on relational satisfaction and relationship commitment. Based on previous research (e.g., De Wulf, Odekerken- Schröder, & Iacobucci, 2001) and cultural theories (e.g., Hofstede, 1980, 2001), nine hypotheses were developed involving the effects of relationship building tactics (i.e., direct mail, preferential treatment, communication, and tangible rewards) on relationship proneness, relational satisfaction and store loyalty. This quantitative study used a survey among two samples of consumers in China and the U.S. The final sample size was comprised of 349 student consumers. The findings of the research provide managerial implications for international retailers. Relationship proneness is a meaningful personal characteristic that can be used to describe or predict consumer behavior across cultures. A relationship marketing strategy that works for one culture may also work well in another culture. It is possible and appropriate, at least with generation Y consumers, to employ standardized approaches in relationship marketing across cultures.

A Success Framework to Investigate Critical Factors Associated with Implementation of Customer Relationship Management

This paper suggests a novel success framework for customer relationship management (CRM) based on a conceptual implementation model to identify associated critical factors and their contribution to overall success/failure. Fuzzy analytic network process (FANP) is applied to identify the relative importance of each factor in successful implementation of each stage and the CRM initiative as a unified process. The results illustrate that CRM goals, change management, customer knowledge management, and top management support are the most critical factors for successful implementation of CRM projects within Iranian business contexts. The proposed success framework provides valuable insight into the CRM implementation process and its critical success factors (CSFs). It can be applied as a practical assessment tool that provides a pre-evaluation of the overall success of the CRM implementation project and identifies areas of weakness that negatively affect successful implementation of each stage of CRM initiative.

Do Attitudes Toward Careers in Sales Differ Based on Country of Origin?

Personal selling is a profession that has been described as requiring skilled and professional employees. Although employers have looked toward colleges and universities as sources of potential new sales employees in the past, the complexity and professionalism required in sales has led employers to recruit graduate students to fill the sales role. This research evaluates the exposure of students pursuing their MBA degrees to sales and their attitudes toward sales to identify how these attitudes might affect the recruiting process. Further, given the prevalence of international business operations, the study identifies sales attitudes and sales exposure in a comparative fashion by assessing the responses of MBA students in the US and in UK The results provide insights into differences in attitudes and sales knowledge between students enrolled in MBA courses in the two countries. Based on these findings, conclusions and suggestions for employers and educational institutions are developed.

An Examination of Mediation

This paper examines the role of psychological mediators on consumers’ responses to persuasive sales tactics. Factor Analysis is used to determine the actual mediators identified by consumers as potential targets by salespeople and find structure in the data. An exploratory examination identifies four categories of potential psychological mediators. Experimental results reveal that consumers recognize sales tactics designed to influence these psychological mediators. These processes, in turn, mediate the influence of persuasive tactics on consumer responses. Overall, the study lends support to Friestad and Wright’s Persuasion Knowledge Model (1994).

Customer Relationship Management in Professional Service Organizations

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications have gained primary attention in large service industry sectors, such as the financial, telecommunications and hotel industries. However, relatively few researchers have studied CRM in the context of Professional Service Organizations (PSOs). PSOs are found across a broad spectrum of service offerings and they share several key aspects. Some of these aspects include the following: PSOs are high in people-processing features, have close contact with customers, and are high in credence attributes. Given this critical reliance on the customer, most PSOs would benefit from implementing a CRM system to facilitate their business and sustain customer relationships. This paper compares marketing practices and client management approaches in PSOs between those utilizing and those not utilizing a CRM system. The building industry is used as a case study. The paper introduces the CRM concept, describing its significance to the building industry and presents the methodology and findings from an exploratory research investigation. It also presents a framework for CRM applications in PSOs and highlights a future research agenda tempered by some limitations of the research study.

A Framework for E-Service Implementation in the Developing Countries

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for explaining the main barriers and drivers of public e-service development and the relationships among them, especially in developing countries. This framework increases the chance of success of e-service projects in the governments of developing countries and provides a basic context within which the process and practice of e-service can be implemented successfully. This paper accomplishes this task by flowing from the traditional rigid context, which occurs in many developing countries, to full public e-service environment, emphasizing citizen-centric focus and digitalisation. The proposed framework builds on prior literature in the area of e-service development in public organisations and from the efforts undertaken in developing countries, considering e-government lessons learned in developing countries. The framework is flexible enough to be adopted by governments at different levels in developing countries around the world.