Marketing and Car Rental Companies

THE

INFLUENCE

OF

INTERNAL

MARKETING

ELEMENTS ON BRAND IMAGE OF SELECTED CAR RENTAL COMPANIES IN SOUTH AFRICA

STUDENT NAME XXXXXX (student number)

Thesis

submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree PhD in Marketing Management in the Faculty of Management at the University of Johannesburg

JOHANNESBURG September 2009

Supervisor:

Prof xxxxx

Co-supervisor: Dr yyyy

Table of contents

____________________________________________________________________________

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH 1.1 Overview of services and services marketing 1.2 Internal marketing 1.3 Brand identity and brand image 1.4 Car rental in South Africa 2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 3. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 3.1 Primary objective 3.2 Secondary objectives 4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 5. HYPOTHESES 6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH 7. LITERATURE REVIEW 7.1 Theoretical paradigm 7.2 Research Constructs 7.3 Relationship between variables 8. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 8. 1 Research design 8.2 Research format 8.3 Population and sample 8.4 Data collection instruments, sources and procedures 8.5 Data analysis 9. DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY 10. CONTRIBUTION OF THE STUDY 11. CLARIFICATION OF TERMS AND DEFINITIONS 12. DIVISION OF THE STUDY 13. TIME FRAME AND BUDGETARY CONSIDERATIONS 14. LIST OF REFERENCES 3 3 4 6 8 9 10 10 11 12 13 19 19 20 22 23 23 24 24 25 26 27 27 28 28 29 30 31

2

Research proposal

1.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Organisations across all industries recognise that services are becoming an important factor in all their business dealings to obtain a competitive advantage (Strydom, 2005:114). According to Palmer (2005:2), every industry is a service industry and the only aspect that separates industries is the size of their service component. Innovative organisations offering unique services to customers are now succeeding in markets where established organisations have failed (Lovelock and Wirtz, 2004:4).

References: Strydom, L. (2005). Internal marketing in a service organisation. Unpublished MCom thesis, University of Johannesburg. Available from http//0-etd.uj.ac.za.ujlink.uj.ac.za/. (Accessed 10 August 2009). Varey, R.J. & Lewis, B.R. (2000). Internal Marketing: Directions for Management. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. Wilson, A. (1972). The Marketing of Professional Services. New York: McGraw-Hill. Witt, P. & Rode, V. (2005). Corporate Brand Building in Start-ups. Journal of Enterprising Culture, 13(3):273-294. Zeithaml, V.A. McGraw-Hill. Zeithaml, V.A., Bitner, M.J. & Gremler, D.D. (2006). Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Organisation. 4th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. Zikmund, W.G. (2003). Exploring marketing research. 8th edition. Australia: Thomson South-Western. & Bitner, M.J. (2003). Service Marketing. 3rd edition. New York: 37