فصلنامه مدیریت بازرگانی
سال سیزدهم شماره 48 (تابستان 1400)

Recently, branding plays a significant role for service companies. However, many service companies do not have a distinct and well-known brand because services are heterogeneous, intangible, and based on experience. On the other hand, the literature in the field of service branding are greatly scattered. Therefore, this study seeks to address and fill this gap by providing a comprehensive and systematic framework for the strategic development of the branding process based on the CIPP model.  

The present qualitative research was conducted based on the meta-synthesis approach. Accordingly, 226 previous studies related to the subject of the study were reviewed based on the model proposed by Sandlowski and Barso. The research population consisted of all articles published in ISI journals, books, as well as domestic and foreign dissertations related to branding in the service industry during 1996 and 2020.

According to the CIPP model, the authors identified 16 concepts and 176 codes for the context, input, process, and output of the related literature. Research findings indicate that, as the "contextual" indicator, the environment proximity is effective on the strategic development of the branding process. The "inputs" of strategic development of the branding process include the following four factors: structural, managerial, financial, and employee factors. The crucial issue of strategic development of the branding process is the "process", which consists of formation of brand strategy, brand analysis and evaluation, planning and instructions, program development, and executive measures. The desired outcome of the proposed research model is to achieve the "output" (outcome) of strategic development, which includes organizational, managerial, financial, human resources, and marketing performance.

The findings of this study help researchers and stakeholders in the field of service branding to develop a comprehensive understanding of the strategic development of the branding process. It includes the variables and considerations to take into account in four categories of contexts, inputs, process, and outputs. Hence, this study contributes to the literature by filling the potential gaps and enhancing the depth of knowledge in the field of service branding.

Organizations strive to propose a clear and unique intra- and inter-organizational image to show their advantages over other employers. This is conceptualized as the employer brand, which includes the combination of the efforts that an organization makes not only to retain their talented workforce, but also to be the first choice of job seekers. It is noteworthy that the company must be one of the best companies in order to attract the best employees. Successful employer branding requires addressing the factors that are important for the talented workforce. Therefore, it is essential to identify positive points in the eyes of talented workers and consider a statistical population of talented workers regardless of the type of organization, which highlights the need to provide a comprehensive and new model in this study. It is thus necessary to conduct this research because Tehran labor market includes a wide range of organizations. Therefore, talented employees have more choices and it is easy to find different types of characteristics that affect their job choices in this labor market and the appropriate statistical community for the present study. Hence, this study seeks to illustrate what is important for a talented workforce about the ideal employer and to provide managers with solutions to create an effective employer brand.

This survey research is applied in terms of purpose and has been conducted using in-depth and semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey. At first, the grounded theory was applied to design the employer branding model with a qualitative approach, and then the model was assessed using a quantitative approach. Data were collected using a semi-structured interview with 25 graduates of different postgraduate and doctoral programs, who have been employed in the labor market of Tehran during the research. The desinged model led to the distribution and collection of 437 questionnaires. The analysis of the interview data was performed using open, axial, and selective coding based on Strauss and Corbin’s model using Nvivo 10 software. The quantitative part of modeling was assessed using structural equations via SPSS 25 and AMOS 24 software.  

The findings of the qualitative part led to the development of the employer branding model based on the perspectives of talented employees in the Tehran labor market, including causal conditions: what the employer promises to the knowledge employees is based on their expectations of the organization, manager, and the job. These expectations are based on Maslow's hierarchy of occupational needs. Phenomenon-orientation: the main category in employer branding is identifying the potential clashes of the individuals with the organization and dealing with their experiences so that the employer brand can be managed in the minds of people. Contextual conditions: if an organization has a lot of power resources i.e., organizational capabilities and competencies including organizational empowerment, products, and engagement in the international market, it has prepared the requirements for employer branding. Besides, it enjoys the cooperation and support of all employer branding trustees, and its human resource management operates at an appropriate level of maturity leading to a better platform for employer branding. Intervening conditions: the employer's brand experience and the strategies that individuals pursue are influenced by the type of dominant characteristics of job candidates, the conditions under which the brand content is marketed, and how the employer and employees address the employer's branding challenges. Strategies: these are introduced at both the employer and employees’ levels. Outcomes: the consequences of branding that result from the adoption of different strategies by the employer and the workforce are classified into different areas of recruitment and retention, employees, organizational performance, customer and market, brand awareness, human resources, business brand, and secondary outcomes.

The results of data analysis showed that the mutual expectations of the individuals, job, and organization can lead to the creation of the employer brand experience. Along with the contextual conditions (organizational power resources, executive requirements of employer branding, employer branding trustees, and human resource management subsystems) and intervening conditions (job candidate image, employer content marketing, and employer branding challenges), this experience leads to employer strategies in brand promises and employees’ strategies so as to decide whether to stay or leave the organization. It will ultimately results in employer branding consequences.

Appropriate management of people's mental image of political discourse can lead to success in political competitions. Political discourses are described using concepts, which are arranged in the minds of individuals as a network of positive and negative associations. While the political affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran is dominated by the two political discourses of fundamentalism and reformism, there has been no research to identify the mental image of individuals. Accordingly, it can be argued that there is no knowledge about the positive and negative associations of the brand of fundamentalist and reformist political discourses. Consequently, identifying the mental image of individuals from the brand of political discourses of fundamentalism and reformism can lay the foundation for measures to stabilize or reform their mental image. Hence, the purpose of this study is to map a network of brand association of political discourses of fundamentalism and reformism.

This empirical research is descriptive in terms of data collection. The statistical population includes all Allameh Tabatabai University students. Based on the available non-random sampling method, the sample size equals four hundred students. Research data were collected in two stages of interviews to extract brand associations and collect mind maps. The validity of the research was assessed using the map reconstruction method; and the reliability of the research was assessed using the split-half method. The brand concept map method has been used to draw social maps.

After collecting associations, drawing individual mind maps, and drawing social mind maps for fundamentalist and reformist discourses, it was found that fundamentalist discourse has fourteen associations. As a result, former president “Ahmadinejad”, “the worried movement”, “Islamic Republic of Iran broadcasting”, and former military officer “Qalibaf” are regarded the first-order associations of the fundamentalism discourse. The reformist discourse contains thirteen associations, with the “open atmosphere”, the former president “Khatami”, “disqualification by guardian council”, president “Rouhani”, and “joint comprehensive plan of action” are the first-order associations of the reformist discourse.

The results revealed that the network of associations of fundamentalist and reformist discourses are distinctly different in the four areas of economic perspective, political perspective, social perspective, and personality definition. This difference is the source of cognition and recognition between the fundamentalist and reformist parties. Nonetheless, certain associations were identified for the fundamentalist discourse within the two areas of cultural perspective and the voter base; however, there were no specific associations identified for reformist discourse in this regard.

The petrochemical industry is greatly significant because it can increase the connections between the domestic economy and the country's petroleum sector. It can also direct Iranian economy from a crude energy seller to an exporter of valuable products. The petrochemical industry has different conditions in road and marine transportation and it is impossible to pose senctions in this area due to the variety of products and customers. On the other hand, petrochemicals, such as oil, do not have traceable export bases and massive tankers. However, the vulnerability of the petrochemical industry to sanctions will be reduced as long as Iran moves towards the actualization of converting primary products into various end products. It will lead to greater foreign exchange earnings. In this regard, Iran can minimize the opposition of petrochemical sanctions by relying on the export of polymer products. The purpose of this study was to provide a model of various factors affecting the development of international markets for petrochemical products.  

To achieve this goal, the factors were identified using a qualitative mixed approach i.e., the grounded theory. For this purpose, 20 petrochemical industry experts were interviewed to collect data.  

As a result, 106 concepts were identified, which were divided into 21 categories and 6 dimensions. Price factors, influential groups, export manager capability, geographical factors, host company’s conditions, competitive conditions, production factors, product characteristics, and finally the company's strategy and status were identified as causal factors. In addition, 5 macroeconomic factors, governmental policies, export regulations, industry-related factors, and macro-export factors were extracted as contextual conditions. Three strategies of technology leadership, market leadership, and cost leadership were also identified. The consequences and results of the development of international markets were also defined into two categories of brand image and financial performance. Moreover, the company’ life and organizational culture were recognized as interfering factors. Consequently, the development model of international markets was proposed.  

Considering the difficult economic conditions in today's world, most markets have established a dynamic nature, which requires companies to constantly strive to improve their organization. Particularly, more effort is required in response to the changing needs of foreign customers. International sanctions is regarded as one of the most important sources identified in the field of governmental policy. Reviewing the sanctions imposed on Iran shows that different aspects of the economy are the target of sanctions in terms of consumption, income, production, import of goods and services, and etc. Exports (oil and non-oil) is one of the targets of sanctions, which can have a paramount place according to the conditions of Iran. None of the countries producing and owning petrochemical industry can produce and replace about 25 million tons of petrochemical exports like in Tehran. Besides, it is relatively impossible for other countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to replace Iran.

Given the competitive nature of markets these days, environmental changes and gaining the trust of customers by other organizations have found that it is necessary to gain customers’ trust. On the other hand, insurance industry has been regarded as a rapidly growing industry in terms of quality and quantity of insurance companies. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of different types of customers’ and sellers’ characteristics on sellers’ trustfulness. On the one hand, it intends to address the theoretical gap by providing a comprehensive model in this field.

The present empirical research was conducted using a descriptive-survey method. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed using Cronbach's alpha and CR index; the validity was assessed based on content validity, as well as convergent and divergent validity methods. The data were collected between September 2019 and September 2020. The statistical population of this study includes all customers of private insurance companies in Tehran. The data were analyzed using Smart P.L.S software and hierarchical linear analysis.

Data analysis findings revealed that customers' personality type has an effect on sellers’ trustfulness. Besides, the sellers' personality type at the organization level had a significantly intervening effect on the relationship between customers' personality type and the sellers' trustfulness at the individual level. In addition, the mediating effect of the sellers' personality type was measured using the Sobel test and its severity was measured using VIF coefficient.

The findings indicated that the sellers’ personality type had a more significant effect. Moreover, all dimensions of customers' and sellers’ personality types had a significant effect. Particularly, sincerity and openness were among the most significant customers’ personality types, while perceived stability had the most impact among the sellers' personality types. Finally, the sellers' personality type was confirmed as a mediator between the customers' personality type and sellers’ trustfulness.

Gray markets refer to those markets where multinational brands are distributed throughout the local markets of a country through unofficial sources of brand activity. Consequently, companies that are responsible for distribution of multinational brands in the host country will face difficulties. Given that consumers tend to gray markets to buy the original brand at lower prices during economic fluctuations in particular countries, it is impossible to eliminate gray markets, (Dasu et al., 2012). On the other hand, the lack of appropriate management of such markets and the passive approach of multinational companies toward such markets undermine the value of those international brands in the host countries and undervalue branding efforts. In our country, gray markets also exist and have significant economic consequences. The home appliance market is one of the most critical existing gray markets in Iran, which has emerged due to a lack of screening and extensive activities in the illegal distribution of home appliance brands. Samsung home appliance company is regarded as one of the international companies that has suffered accordingly. Gray markets that do not provide adequate support and following services for consumers have caused problems for the Samsung brand. This problem-oriented study on the gray market for Samsung home appliance products intends to address why such gray markets have emerged despite various marketing activities by Samsung Company. This study aims at identifying antecedents and consequences of the existence of gray markets for Samsung products.

The present empirical study is developmental in terms of purpose and qualitative in terms of data collection. This research has been conducted according to the grounded theory. The research sample includes a group of managers working at Sam Service Company and university professors who were selected by purposeful sampling. The data were collected through interviews and then coded in three levels of open, axial, and selective coding. Eventually, the results were coded into five categories of causal, contextual, and intervening conditions, as well as strategies and consequences based on Strauss and Corbin model.

Causal conditions include economic fluctuations and lack of screening in the country's entrance refers to the critical phenomenon of emergence of gray market. Contextual conditions entail rules and regulations and also consumers’ culture. Intervening conditions include empowerment of legal intermediaries and consumers’ awareness. Strategies encompass customized and passive production strategies. And finally outcomes include sales performance and brand value. The research findings indicated that there were not adequate necessary advertisement to persuade buyers from intermediaries and sales agents; besides, Samsung company has focused its advertisement on their products instead of official distributors. Therefore, it is very important to reconsider and invest in advertising and communication to inform customers about the significance of buying from official suppliers. Focusing on creating a consumer culture corresponding to service quality and reducing the risk of product problems can also strengthen consumer culture and reduce consumer risk-taking to buy from gray markets. In terms of laws, there are not adequate restrictive laws leading to the formation of the gray market in the field of home appliances, and in particular Samsung brand.

The results of this study showed that it is necessary to address the specific economic conditions of the host market, the extent of distributing channels and supply of products of the main company, creating a culture of buying from official channels, familiarizing customers with follow-up service, and establishing systems to engage customers accordingly. In terms of theoretical participation, findings of this study can be considered in the application of necessary theories related to customer engagement for international companies. The lack of constant communication between Sam Service Company and its customers has established a sense of Service Company for customers rather than a company that is the official provider of products. It leads to the image that customers should only refer to the company when there is a problem and they need repair services. Therefore, it is related to the natural dissatisfaction caused by product problems or service failure. However, in case of creating customer engagement systems, a continuous and coherent relationship is established with the parent company and the official representative can increases the brand value. It also results in incentives such as loyalty discounts, customer club points, and etc. during future purchases. It causes customers to disregard gray markets and turn to official markets, and also leads to constant communication with customers.

Insurance companies are increasingly developing their representatives to gain a larger share of the target market. Therefore, representatives’ ability is very crucial in profitability. In this regard, it is innitailly necessary to identify the factors affecting the performance of the sales network in the insurance industry in order to empower targeted representatives. Since analysis of the statistics and performance of the representatives of the sales network in the insurance industry indicates that most of the representatives are not capable of achieving these goals irrespective of the objectives set by the related marketing and monitoring network. The other representatives are not adequately satisfied with their performance toward the market potential. Hence, there is relatively a little sale of various types of insurances in these representatives. Therefore, the present study seeks to answer the crucial question of what factors can explain the performance of the sales network in the insurance industry.

The grounded theory has been used in the present study based on Glaser and Strauss’ proposed guidelines. The statistical population includes all insurance industry experts in Gilan province, including the experienced insurance industry sales network with higher education degrees, as well as technical and executive managers and major insurers. Consequently, 17 of them were selected considering the inclusion criteria (having at least a Master's degree and a work experience of at least 15 years in the insurance industry) using snowball sampling method as a purposeful method in qualitative research. After the interviews, theoretical saturation has been achieved.

The findings show that the factors affecting the performance of the sales network in the insurance industry include individual factors related to representatives (individual intrinsic characteristics and individual acquired characteristics), factors related to the representatives organization (organizational characteristics, customer relationship management, human resource characteristics, and marketing structure), insurance representatives’ performance (their financial performance, service performance, and communication performance), factors related to insurance company (insurance company characteristics), factors related to the central insurance company (central insurance characteristics), environmental characteristics (economic, political, cultural, social, and legal factors), sales network performance in the insurance industry (representatives and brokers’ performance), empowerment of sales network (economic growth and development of sales network, social development of sales network, cultural growth and development of sales network).

The proposed model reveals that causal conditions include: individual factors related to representatives and factors related to the representatives’ organization. Besides, phenomenon-orentation include performance of insurance representatives; strategies include factors related to the central insurance; contextual factors include factors related to insurance company; and the intervening conditions include environmental factors that lead to these conditions. It leads to the development of sales network’ performance in the insurance industry.

The introduction of facilities, capabilities, attractions, and various tourism conveniences of the country is regarded as a crucial measure in the development of tourism industry in Iran. It is also recommended to persuade, encourage, and convince domestic and foreign audiences to visit these attractions. Hence, the use of the Internet, as a primary source of tourist destination information, is growing increasingly. Investigating the factors affecting place branding in social networks (tourism) can have a significant impact on the exchange of information and experiences about traveling to different regions and tourists' intention to choose Iran as a tourism destination. This will help formulate appropriate strategies to create a promising mental image for the tourists. As a result, it can lead to a greater number of tourists to Iran, job creation, and destination development. This research aims to answer the following question: What factors affect the branding of places in the social network Instagram?

The present quantitative study is exploratory in nature because it intends to find the factors affecting place branding in the Instagram. In this study, the Instagram pages of three domestic tourism destinations and four foreign tourism destinations were examined. Then, 912 Instagram posts were examined on these target pages during in a one-year span. Data analysis and data mining were performed using IBM SPSS Modeler software using the two methods of linear support vector machine and neural network.

Several effective factors were considered as inputs, such as post type, post content, caption type, caption language, the number of tags, number of hashtags, hashtag language, and the date of the post. Besides, the following factors were considered as outputs: the number of likes and comments (indicating the level of brand awareness, which means the main factor in the development of the place brand). It was found that the higher number of likes and comments is associated with the greater place brand awareness and more prevalence of the city's tourism brand.

The subject of the research, which has a comparative approach in the study of international, Middle East, and domestic levels; and the aim of the research was to compare the famous international tourism Instagram pages (London and Paris), in the Middle East (Dubai and Turkey)and also the domestic pages. It was concluded that the posts that were shared in September, July, March, and May have received more likes and greater brand awareness on domestic Instagram pages (Isfahan, Kerman, Tehran). Moreover, sharing posts in December, January, and July will trigger more comments on Instagram. In addition, it can be said that using appropriate captions for the places and events, emotional captions, and question-form captions have only led to receiving more likes and brand awareness. Furthermore, sharing different images of cultural attractions, urban attractions, entertainments, as well as restaurants and coffee shops cause more likes and comments and may increase brand awareness. In addition, sharing posts on Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays will cause more likes and increase brand awareness. Finally, sharing a post as a photo leads to more comments and thus increases brand awareness.

Customer experience management has been regarded as a hot topic for managers and marketing researchers recently. The growing interest in the customer experience area is a result of the increasing complexity of channels, interactions, choices, and customers’ journeys. Thus, companies attempt to meet these challenges by increasing their comprehensive efforts. Organizations typically depict and manage the customers’ experience through customer journeys (including a large number of contact points representing direct and indirect customer interactions with the organization). Given the importance of this area of ​​research, particularly in marketing studies, it is essential to identify the sub-areas and research process. This study aims to review previous studies in customer experience management, identify primary articles, and identify sub-areas and the research process.

This empirical research uses documentary approach for data collection, and data analysis is conducted based on the bibliometric method. Bibliometric analysis refers to a quantitative research method investigating the research literature from the science development perspective. The required data were collected from 124 articles published in the Scopus database, provided that Bibliographic coupling analysis and co-occurrence analysis of keywords were performed. Hence, primary and sub-domain articles were identified. Then, the research process in this field was determined by creating a cover map and the average life of words.

Based on the findings of this study, research on customer experience management can be divided into the following nine clusters: cluster 1: branding, brand loyalty, brands and B2B customer experience indicating research efforts dedicated to the relationship between brand concept and customer experience management; cluster 2: customer relationship management (CRM), customer engagement, interactional marketing, social CRM, and social media; cluster 3, including a large number of studies related to customer satisfaction and loyalty: service quality, satisfaction, trust, and loyalty; cluster 4: customer experience and service design, feelings and cultural differences, and service ecosystem ; cluster 5, including a significant amount of research related to customer experience management in the field of retail; cluster 6: customer experience management, customer journey, marketing strategy, Omni-channel, services, and contact points; cluster 7, including research on the integration of customer experience management and information technology: artificial intelligence and macro data; cluster 8: retail branding, self-service, and social environment; and cluster 9, including studies on e-commerce and the core of customer experience management: macro data, customer journey, service quality, social customer relationship management, and online sales.

This study uses a cover map to address different topics such as the application of macro data in customer experience management, customer journey and contact points, online sales, service quality, customer engagement, B2B customer experience, and social customer relationship management. It also addresses various topics such as service marketing, online customer experience, macro data, customer journey, artificial intelligence, customers’ perceived value, online sales, service quality, social customer relationship management, cultural differences, and Omni-channels by analyzing the average life of words. Therefore, the results obtained from both methods emphasize topics like customer journey, the implementation of macro-data in customer experience management, online sales, service quality, and social customer relationship management.

Foreign media companies have attracted the majority of the domestic market of social media in Iran. Despite imposed restriction on Telegram, it is considered as the main player in this field and domestic companies have not been able to compete in this area. Since the local messengers failed to compete with the foreign social media platforms even under supportive and regulatory policies by the government, it is crucial to pursue competitive market-based strategies and identify the factors affecting the entry of domestic media companies into this market. Consequently, it can lead to providing a comprehensive overview for businesses intending to enter this market. Although awareness of the present situation and identification of effective factors does not lead to the development of an entry or business model, it can prepare the ground for the formation of a perspective based on competitive strategies in this ecosystem for business managers. In this paper, the key factors influencing the entry of domestic media companies into the mobile phone messaging market have been identified based on Porter's five competitive-force model.

The present exploratory study was conducted using the content analysis method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 experts in different fields and managers of internal media. The purposeful sampling was applied and the theoretical saturation rule was used to determine the sample size. Qualitative analysis method and qualitative coding technique were used to analyze the data.

The research findings indicate that following factors are the most significant factors affecting the entry of Iranian media companies into the social media market: "transmission difficulty and technological adhesion", "poor quality of local messengers", "difficulty of providing capable manpower", "technical infrastructure problems", "wrong filtering method", "political outlook and destructive local competition", "lack of comparative advantage and appropriate development model", "strong global competitors", "lack of a comprehensive reference law in the field of media", and finally "media reputation problems".

Regarding the existing condition of the domestic media environment, the empowerment of the political perspective has caused various institutions to be interested in developing social media messengers. It has led to the increasing entry of new competitors into the market. However, these institutions have not succeeded in designing a proper business model based on the value chain of messengers.

Given the shortening of the life cycle of products and the competition intensity in the food industry, opportunism and the timely implementation of opportunities is regarded as a key and winning feature in this industry. Related companies have used various measures to improve this capability, including structural capital and strategic agility. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of structural capital on identifying business opportunities in the food industry through the mediating role of strategic agility.

This empirical study is a descriptive correlational research. In terms of philosophy, this research is a deductive research based on the positivist paradigm. Besides, this research is considered cross-sectional in terms of time. The structural capital questionnaire proposed by Yasin et al. (2016), the strategic agility questionnaire proposed by Konha et al. (2019), and the opportunity identification questionnaire by Sambasivan, Abdol, and Yousef (2009) were used to measure the research variables. Structural equation modeling and PLS software have been used to analyze the data.

This study investigates the relationship between structural capital and strategic agility, as well as the effect of such relationships on the opportunism among 200 Iranian food companies with a variety of products. These large companies are regarded as leaders in offering new products. The results of PLS-SEM reveal that there are significantly positive relationships between structural capital, strategic agility, and opportunism of companies. In addition, strategic agility variables such as strategic sensitivity, resource fluidity, and bright perspectives have a significantly positive effect on identifying business opportunities. Besides, strategic agility plays the mediating role between structural capital and the identification of opportunities. Therefore, the present study can confirm the significant effect of structural capital on increasing strategic agility and identifying business opportunities in the food industry.

The findings of this study can help raise awareness of strategists and senior managers of food companies about the significant role of structural capital and strategic agility in the constant monitoring of the industry. In addition, it can improve opportunism capability in these companies.

With the emergence of private banks in the Iranian banking system during the last decade, there is an intense competition for monetary resources in the country's financial markets. In the meantime, state banks have also struggled to attract and retain customers. The emergence of competitors in this industry highlights the need to use customers’ knowledge and manage it to reach a new source of competitive advantage. The banking environment needs such a management due to high a competition, relatively mature customers’ expectations, and the significant interaction between the bank and the customer. Although there is general agreement on the importance of the role of customers’ knowledge management and customers’ relationship management, there is a lack of an integrated model that measures the role and impact of all functions of such managements. Therefore, the present study seeks to explain an integrated model of customers’ knowledge management and customers’ relationship management based on a competitive approach in the Iranian banking industry.

This fundamental research is exploratory in nature. The semi-structured in-depth interview approach along with library studies were used for data collection. The statistical population of this study includes experts in managerial, banking, and academic topics. Purposeful sampling and snowball sampling were used to identify the experts, where the adequacy of the data was obtained after 16 interviews.

The analysis of the interviews indicated that the ultimate extracted codes were classified into 50 concepts and 18 main categories. Finally, based on the systematic approach in grounded data theory, the identified codes were placed into 6 nuclear classes, including phenomenon-orientation, causal conditions, contextual conditions, intervening conditions, strategies, and consequences

According to the results, the following factors were extracted: causal categories (rapid response of the bank to the external environment, implementation of international standards in customer orientation and social responsibility of the bank), central categories (determining the management framework, manpower supply, determining strategies, and value creation for the customers), strategic categories (integrated marketing, development of technology and novel banking services, strategic alliance, and delta model), contextual categories (changing the approach of senior management, liberalization, and deregulation by the government), interventionist categories (culture of bank empowerment and dynamic competition), and consequential categories (gaining competitive advantage for the bank, customer satisfaction, and strengthening banking services in the community). Hence, these categories are influential for the success of the integrated customer knowledge management and customer relationship management