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The study explored the relationship between buyer–seller interactions and customer satisfaction in the small apparel fashion enterprises in the emerging markets. The moderating role of COVID-19 protocols implementations on buyer–seller interactions and customer satisfaction was further examined.

Buyer–seller interactions affecting customer satisfaction were divided into three constructs, namely, interactions relating to the overall customers shopping experience, smooth payment process and in-store interactions, and the COVID-19 protocols implementations were used as a moderator. A convenient sampling strategy was adopted to survey 450 customers of apparel fashion enterprises within the four regions in Ghana, of which 397 were validly used for the analysis. Existing questionnaires were adapted to collect data from the respondents. The data collected was therefore analysed using SPSS and SmartPLS programme to ascertain the nature of the relationships among the variables.

The study found that, in-store interactions, shopping experience and smooth payment processes directly influence customer satisfaction. However, the implementation of COVID-19 protocols failed to moderate the relationship between buyer–seller interactions and customer satisfaction.

The limitations of the study involve its context-specific, focusing on the small apparel and fashion market. Also, future researchers can re-examine the model in other geographical jurisdictions, focusing on small apparel owners’ competencies and other variables that position buyer–seller interactions as precursors of customer satisfaction in the small apparel fashion industry. The theoretical and managerial relevance of the findings are also discussed.

The paper extends the domain of buyer–seller interactions and customer satisfaction phenomena within the apparel fashion industry. Its examination of the impact of COVID-19 protocols’ implementation on customer satisfaction provides an insight into managers regarding how the applications can affect customers in a typical shopping environment.

The purpose of this paper is to study compatibility variations in buyer‐seller relationships between Mainland Chinese firms and Hong Kong Chinese buyer firms that act as intermediaries to markets in the West.

Data are drawn from 19 multiple in‐depth case study interviews with Mainland and Hong Kong Chinese firms and buyer firms from the West.

Compatibility dimensions that provide further evidence of factors that underpin the nature of classical‐type exchange arrangements, vis‐à‐vis relational relationships, within Chinese buyer‐seller interactions are identified. Compatibility variations based on political and legal factors are driven by interpretation and application of Chinese state laws at the business and provincial levels rather than at the national level. Mainland Chinese tend to exhibit authoritative vis‐à‐vis Confucian‐based practices and a short‐term orientation within interactions.

There is a need to expand the psychic distance composite to elucidate compatibility variations within the distinct provincial business regions of China. Quantitative studies to test for compatibility variability in China business practices across China are needed next. A better understanding of the nature of classical inclinations used by the Chinese is crucial, as is an understanding of how firms, both domestic and foreign, are able to leverage classical and relational relationships within Mainland China.

Uncertainty associated with the entrepreneurial behaviours of Chinese businesspersons and a varying emphasis on traditional Confucian values in business result in a hybridisation of interactions across classical and relational types. Guanxi may be evolving beyond traditional social and personal trust as Mainland Chinese business relationships have advanced from the smaller scale CFB stage to the state‐owned enterprise stage, and now to the larger and increasingly important world trade stage.

The paper challenges shortcomings in research that has centred exclusively on the relational nature of Chinese business interactions, and it builds on previous research to study compatibility variations underpinning these Chinese interactions. It predicts a hybridisation of interactions amongst Chinese actors and provides a foundation for future quantitative research to study compatibility variations, and also classical‐type business practices across China. Increased international market awareness may also be leading to the inclusion of an economic trust factor, driving classical‐type Chinese buyer‐seller relationships, as is more characteristic of arrangements found in Western exchanges.

The purpose of this study is to increase understanding of gaps in buyer‐seller relationships. Business relationships are more complex and more dynamic in today’s environment, which itself is more complex, rapidly changing, and dynamic. It can be assumed that when an industry undergoes rapid change a great number of different groups of gaps, such as contextual, economic, informational, legal, planning, procedural, social, and technological, are likely to emerge. The present study provides a new framework and its seven glasses (perspectives of framework), i.e. viewpoints for managers to use for understanding, describing, and analysing gaps in buyer‐seller relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to focus its attention on the analysis of buyer-seller interactions in facility services. In particular it proposes to investigate the interactions Italian municipalities develop with sellers involved in facility services outsourcing and to evaluate how scientific contributions on business service (filtered through Service Dominant Logic) are constitutive paradigms of the interactions investigated.

The investigation is based on 15 case studies of small and medium-sized municipalities that are built on in-depth interviews with technical staff who, together with the mayors, perform the role of facility managers. Results from case studies are triangulated with secondary data and observations emerging from focus groups.

The research reveals paradoxes in the outsourcing processes of business services implemented by the public organizations analyzed. From these paradoxes it derives that the outsourcing of facility services in Italian municipalities is associated more with transactions than with interactions (municipalities do not act as operant resources) and that the transactions activated do not necessary generate efficiency.

Normative rules together with contextual factors jeopardize the adaptation in public organizations of interaction approaches to business service resulting from service and industrial marketing. The value of the paper lies in the identification of paradoxes as synthetic expressions of the divergences between empirical results and specialized interaction approaches on business services. In the light of these divergences, the paper proposes a contextualized re-interpretation of Service Dominant Logic.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of appearance, lifestyle and status similarity on interaction intensity, satisfaction with a banker and repurchase intention. Also examined was the moderating effect of client knowledge in the enhancement of customer satisfaction with a banker.

A total of 800 questionnaires using the snowball sampling technique were performed to distribute the questionnaires to bank customers at different ethnic community centers in New Zealand. A total of 377 useable questionnaires were collected for further analysis.

The findings indicated that the three types of similarity affect interaction intensity differently. Lifestyle similarity was found to positively influence interaction intensity. The similarity constructs of appearance and status were found to have an insignificant relationship with interaction intensity. The findings show that appearance similarity and interaction intensity are able to enhance customer satisfaction with a banker. Customer satisfaction with a banker has a significant relationship with repurchase intention. Client knowledge influences the degree of interaction intensity and satisfaction with a banker.

The findings of this study help bankers to understand the importance of their similarities with a customer and to design recruitment strategies and training sections to improve customer satisfaction.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge by incorporating interaction intensity, similarity and satisfaction with a bank into the repurchase intention model.

The purpose of this research is to increase understanding of post-project business relationships in service-intensive projects, a topic unexplored to date. This research contributes to the project marketing research focusing on post-project interaction, by building a conceptual research framework capable of illustrating the path from the initiation of a relationship through the project’s afterlife.

A comparative case study is used across four different service-intensive project contexts to highlight the conceptual research framework, derived from the IMP-related interaction research, in practice.

According to the research findings, there are at least four potential post-project business relationships associated with service-intensive projects. Furthermore, the findings indicate that these relationships embody certain antecedent and process characteristics, enabling us to compile four distinct development paths.

The four cases of the empirical research were chosen on theoretical grounds to highlight the conceptual research framework in practice, and thus the purpose was mainly descriptive. The findings should be generalized only with caution, as more empirical research is needed in this emerging project context.

For managers, the findings provide practical guidance to deal with different post-project relationships. They will help managers to initiate, maintain and develop post-project relationships and to avoid a mismatch between relationship antecedent, processes and outcomes.

Post-project buyer – seller interaction has been studied by the project marketing research stream, but mainly from the perspective of social exchange and sleeping relationships. With the advent of service-intensive projects, however, a whole new breed of post-project business relationships is unfolding and demanding research attention. This research is a step toward understanding the different post-project business relationships associated with service-intensive projects.

Prior research has suggested that the key to industrial purchasing success lies in the time development and maintenance of long‐term relationships between buyers and sellers. Good relational exchanges can lead to higher product quality and better coordination with the suppliers. As such, the purpose of this article is to explain how the change of these relationships over time is critical to successful purchasing, especially in understanding the factors that influence the relational change.

Three mini case studies are presented as an attempt to capture the subtle development of buyer‐seller relationships in the Asian printed circuit board industry. The approach used in this paper is to treat the relationship development as a process through time using Ford's model from 1980. Ford's model is appropriate as it allows the examination of time effects in relationships, factors influencing the change and the implications of having close linkages.

Initial results suggest that technological, social, time and actual distances, other than the quality of the relationships, can impact relationship development.

The results of this study suggest that buyers should consider carefully the influence of the geographical proximity of suppliers. As such, buyers could seek the services of personnel or departments who are more attuned to the supplier's local culture.

The first and most basic issue is the position and role of Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) research in relation to contemporary economic research, where the authors raise the issue of phenomenon-driven theory development. The discussion hinges on the methodological implications of phenomenon-driven research and emphasizes the interplay of phenomena in focus, theory development and methodological approaches. Two approaches identified in a natural science field, depicted as image- and logic-based research, are used to examine research on business relationships, networks and interactions. The authors argue that the bulk of IMP studies has taken the image-based approach which, in the natural sciences, is considered to produce as hard facts as logic-based (theory testing) research. The detailed images (pictures) of the business landscape that IMP research has produced must be taken as seriously as any quantitative study of the same landscape. Greater awareness and more discussion of the ontological and methodological issues in researching the business world are needed.

Examines existing models of buyer behaviour and evaluates their relevance to financial services in the light of the specific characteristics of the sector and its products. Reviews empirical work relating to both personal and corporate buying behaviour and suggests the IMP framework as a basis for future conceptual work because of its emphasis on the relationships and interactions in the buying process.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and test a model which integrates the antecedents and consequences of adopting information technology (IT) with suppliers (i.e. online communication and e‐procurement) in the context of the travel agency supply chain.

A mail survey was conducted among 101 managers of travel agencies. A structured questionnaire was developed to measure the informants' scores on a set of the model constructs (i.e. IT adoption, B2B interactions, environmental factors, sales performance, efficiency, and relationship development).

The findings confirm the influence of e‐communication on e‐procurement in supply chains. Regarding the antecedents, relationship intensity and environmental factors partially enhance the e‐business adoption. The impacts of IT adoption on supply relationships are also supported.

Even though this study is cross‐sectional, it may be interesting to develop a longitudinal study to understand the evolution of this phenomenon.

IT adoption requires an integrative approach in supply chain relationships. The adoption of IT needs to be taken into account by any service business, given its positive effects on the sales growth, cost reduction and favourable long‐term B2B relationships.

The primary objective of the paper is to provide some new perspectives in explaining how IT can enhance service firms' productivity and ensuring long‐term B2B relationships. Interestingly, while previous studies in manufacturing companies have provided theoretical clues to analyze antecedents and outcomes of e‐business, no previous study has been applied in services supply chains.