ABSTRACT
A number of business disciplines have built theory that describes the relationship of an organization with its customers. From a marketing perspective, the customer is a source of earnings, market intelligence or word-of-mouth promotion; hospitality managers can benefit by understanding the manipulable dimensions of consumer behaviour that suggest directions for firm strategy. From the viewpoint of organizational theorists, the customer is an environmental partner who impacts structure, division of labour, human resources and other policies. Traditional operations management views the customer as the source of demand triggering desired levels of production, as a trading partner in the supply chain impacting the throughput rate, and as a source of operational uncertainty.
