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In competitive markets, maintaining customers and building trust and loyalty are considered important in marketing relationship. Banks have invested some ways to improve customer loyalty for developing their activities. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of relationship marketing on word-of-mouth communication in the Melli Bank branches of Roodsar in which customer loyalty had the mediation role in their relationship. The study was an applied research adopting a descriptive method. The data were gathered using questionnaire method and the study population consisted of customers of Melli Bank in Roodsar. Following this, 460 questionnaires were distributed among customers of the Melli Bank branches using convenient sampling and finally 420 questionnaires were collected for analysis. LISREL software is employed to analyze the data. Findings revealed that the relationship marketing had significant positive impact on customer loyalty and also customer loyalty led to increasing of word-of-mouth communication.

Purpose Purchase intention of consumers depends on their perception of the extent to which his expectations will be met through the product. This issue, in the context of the products that are immediately purchased by consumer, depends on the extent of relationship in the point of sale. Packaging is one of the most significant factors influencing purchase decision in the point of sale. In this research, the purpose is evaluating the impact of using Islamic symbols in food packaging on the purchase intention of Muslim consumers. Design/methodology/approach The authors surveyed Muslim consumers through a questionnaire and analyzed the gathered data through partial least squares (PLS). Findings The findings reveal the positive impact of Islamic symbols in food packaging on purchase intention of Muslim consumers. However, this effect was confirmed regarding people with high religiosity. The findings show that religious symbol in packaging increases perceived religious symbolic-value of the product among the customers with high religiosity. Originality/value Findings of this paper help marketers that are seeking to promote their products in Islamic markets identify the importance of religious symbols and understand when and how to use these symbols in packaging.

In recent decades, there has been a growing attention toward using teamwork and the commitment and productivity of teams to improve the quality of education and research in higher education institutes. To achieve these goals, the leadership style of team leaders and group organizational citizenship behavior (GOCB) of team members who exceed their formal roles are of high importance. This article explores the effects of shared leadership on group commitment and productivity of 70 university teams. It also investigates whether GOCB mediates the effect of shared leadership on team commitment and productivity. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and SmartPLS software are applied to investigate the relationship between variables. The results show that shared leadership has both direct and indirect (through GOCB) effects on team commitment and productivity. Shared leadership affects GOCB, team commitment, and team productivity. Furthermore, GOCB affects team commitment and team productivity.