الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The banking sector is a key constituent of the financial system in any given economy, and indeed in the global economic system. In tandem, Relationship Marketing (RM) is one of the important developments in marketing theory and practice in the last two decades since it emerged from the industrial and services marketing disciplines. There is no previous research that addressed the issue of Relationship Marketing Orientation (RMO) in the banking sector in developing economies in general, and in Egypt in particular. Additionally, no previous studies have either examined the influence of the organisation’s ownership structure (i.e. state-owned or private) on the organisation’s RMO, or the influence of customer’s characteristics (i.e. annual income) on her/his perceptions of their banks’ RMO. The study responds to these gaps of knowledge by examining the issues of relationship marketing and its strategic orientation by developing and empirically validating a conceptual framework for measuring and assessing Egyptian banks’ RMO. The framework identifies, based on reviewing the relevant literature, a list of RMO antecedents, and further attempts to depict the mediating effects (if any) of banks ownership type, and customers’ annual income on the perceived bank orientation towards relationship marketing. The study achieves its purpose by conducting two surveys; one is directed to banks’ senior marketing decision makers, while the other questions bank customers’ perceptions of their banks’ relational marketing practices. Based on several non-parametric statistical tests, the results show that RMO is determined by ten antecedents, these are: trust, commitment, communications, bonding, empathy, shared values, customer satisfaction, long-term orientation, relationship quality, and reciprocity. The findings report that Egyptian banks are, generally, RM oriented. Additionally, the results find that banks’ ownership type and customers’ annual income could exert different influences on banks’ RMO as well as on the customers’ perceptions of their banks’ RMO. These results fill some gaps in the existing literature of relationship marketing, offer several managerial implications for marketers, and provide new opportunities to understand the underpinnings, antecedents, and mediators of relationship marketing orientation within the context of banking services.