Relationship Quality Research

Relationship Quality as measure of RM In relationship marketing, an agreed upon set of defining relationship attributes, has yet to be identified in a formal definition of relationship quality. However, the term ‘Relationship Quality’ has been used frequently in buyer–seller literature by few practitioners and scholars share a common definition and measure. (Julie, 2006) .This study focuses on ‘relationship quality’ as a relationship outcome and an overall means of assessing the strength of a relationship between a firm and its customers. Hennig-Thurau and Klee’s (1997) defines relationship quality as the ‘degree of appropriateness of a relationship to fulfill the needs of the customer associated with the relationship’. Therefore, relationship

129). Several periodical articles have explored the aspect of relationship quality over the past years to better understand the documented dimensions and components of relationship quality. The most cited components pertaining to relationship quality in empirical papers are trust, commitment and satisfaction. For example, in a service study performed by Dwyer et al. (1987), relationship quality was determined to be composed of at least two dimensions in terms of salespeople: trust and satisfaction. Later, Crosby et al. (1990) used trust and satisfaction as dimensions in their study. Morgan and Hunt (1994) sketched out the KMV model and found trust and commitment to be two more relevant constructs in the theoretical conceptualization of relationship quality. Still, few studies on buyer-seller

Scholars, such as Garbarino and Johnson (1999), De Wulf, Odekerken-Schroder and Lacobucci (2001) and Dwyer et al. (1987) use satisfaction, trust, and commitment as dimensions of relationship quality. Johnson (1999) simply describes relationship quality as "the overall depth and climate of the interim relationship". Building on past research, relationship quality was comprised of two different but related dimensions, which are trust and satisfaction (Parsons, 2002).Trust was defined as a seller’s subjective feeling that relying on this intermediary for conducting business is secure and comfortable (Sun, Zhang, & Xiao, 2007). Satisfaction was considered as a feeling reaction to the perceived difference between performance appraisal and expectations (Lin, Chiu, & Tsai, 2008). It has been viewed as “an overall assessment of the strength of the relationship and the extent to which it meets the needs and expectations of the parties based on a history of