Application of Artificial Neural Networks to Recognize the Relationship between Social Capital and Customer Satisfaction

Subject Areas : Business Management

Houshang  Taghizadeh ¹ (Associate Professor, Department of Management, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran)
Mohammad Sadeg  Zeinali Kermani ² (Graduate Student, Department of Business Management, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran)

Received: 2011-02-07 Accepted : 2011-12-13 Published : 2011-12-22

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction, Artificial Neural Networks, Social capital,

Abstract :

The purpose of the present research was to develop a neural networks model to identify the relationship between social capital and customer satisfaction. For this purpose, the effective factors were investigated by reviewing the literature and the related concepts in social capital and customer satisfaction. The present research is based on information obtained from two different data sets. The first data set was built up from the responses of 100 managers of the companies' active in the field of automobile parts manufacturing industries in East Azarbaijan. This sample was chosen by Bartlett charts. For gathering information about SC and its dimensions, we used a questionnaire. The second data set resulted from the responses of customers to a questionnaire survey formulated according to five-point Likert scale items ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The method of research is correlation. Spearman correlation coefficient and Artificial Neural Networks were used for data analysis. Multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural networks with hyperbolic tangent function, trained by feed forward algorithm, were utilized to build the identification model. Testing the questions showed that there is a significant relation between social capital and customer satisfaction.  

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