University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Relationship marketing in agribusiness: a case study

Sirles, Hilary Joan

Content Files
SIRLES-THESIS-2015.pdf

Permalink

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

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
Date of Ingest
2015-07-22T22:45:59Z
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
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/78777
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2015 Hilary Sirles

Owning Collections

Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois
Dissertations - Agricultural and Consumer Economics