engleski

Relationship Orientation in Social Media: Literature Review and Conceptualization

Purpose: The literature in relationship orientation and social media reveals an important gap: there is no formal construct or measurement of relationship- building activities in social media that has been theoretically developed and empirically validated. Therefore, an approach that adequately reflects such efforts, activities and behaviors is called for – one we refer to as relationship orientation in social media (ROSM). To fill this gap in the literature and research, we use qualitative methods to conceptualize ROSM and identify its key dimensions, which is the main purpose of this work. Methodology: We conduct a review of the literature and field interviews in order to develop a better understanding of ROSM. We used a purposive sample that included 30 marketing and non-marketing managers in Croatia and Italy. Additional interviews were conducted with 12 business academics that have expert knowledge in the field. Results: Based on the literature review and field interviews, we adopted a behavioral perspective of ROSM. Such an orientation, aside from continuous interactions with customers, also incorporates knowledge building and dissemination and the development of trust and bonding. Finally, based on the insights from the interviews and the review of the literature, we generated a preliminary pool of 37 items. Conclusion: We believe the main contribution of the work lies in a deeper understanding of relationship- building activities and behaviors in social media through the conceptualization and development of a measure of ROSM construct, making it operational and applicable not only for future research but also for marketing practitioners.

Social media, relationship marketing, conceptualization, literature review

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