Search results

Both the service-dominant logic of marketing and the resource-based view of the firm strongly emphasize the creation of value through buyer–seller relationships by the exchange of resources. To facilitate this exchange of resources, and hence to facilitate value co-creation, the resources of both buyer and seller must be made available to one another. This availability is no accident. Availability of resources occurs through the interaction between the buyer and the seller. In order for this interaction to take place effectively, the relationship must be a good one, particularly in terms of factors such as the commitment, trust, and satisfaction that each partner feels with respect to the other.

Issues of exchange of resources, especially intangible informational resources, through relationships as noted above currently occupy the minds of both managers and researchers. This chapter therefore explores these issues and describes an empirical study that investigates aspects of the exchange of these types of resources through buyer–seller relationships, and some of the conditions that facilitate availability of the resources, specifically in the business-to-business context. The chapter develops a model from the perspective of a seller in a buyer–seller relationship in the business-to-business context and describes the testing of that model.

The model's main constructs are the perceived future accessibility to the seller of the buyer's less tangible resources, the quality of the relationship, and the future financial performance outcomes of the relationship. Survey data, analyzed using structural equation modeling, support the model's proposition that both accessibility of buyer's resources and quality of the relationship have positive outcomes for future financial performance. The analysis also supports the proposed positive relationship between relationship quality and accessibility of buyer's resources. A case study illustrates the application of the model's concepts.

The industrial buyer-seller relational process models from the Eastern and Western worlds have not been combined. The Western world has dominated the development of the models, while there exist only a very limited amount of guanxi development models from the East. This paper is exploratory in nature, focusing on combining the development of these two worlds into one intercultural model. Four case relationships verify the proposed model.

This paper focuses on only one cultural context outside of the West, that is to say, China. In order to justify the model to be completely an intercultural one, research in other cultural contexts is necessary.

The provision of value, as a marketing issue, is receiving increasing attention from managers and scholars. This attention, in combination with strong calls for better quantification and stronger measures in marketing, has lead to increased interest in the assessment, quantified where possible, of the provision of value through buyer–seller relationships. This paper identifies dimensions of value provision through relationships in business markets with specific emphasis on the intangible aspects of value, which are important to long-term competitive advantage. The provision of value to the seller is the prime focus in this paper. The paper discusses the meaning of both tangible and intangible relationship value and the interplay between them and notes the importance of assessing the intangible part of the value, particularly the part which derives from the human aspects of the relationship. Despite their importance, the human aspects of relationships and their contribution to value is a sparse topic among researchers. The paper compares and evaluates potentially useful relationship and value conceptualizations. The paper discusses studies of relationship value and then outlines the results of a recent line of empirical research into the provision of value by a buyer to a seller that utilizes a framework synthesized from the intellectual capital literature. This recent research conceptualizes the potential for a seller's relationship with a buyer to provide intangible value to the seller in terms of, first, the resources available in the buyer and second, the capabilities of the buyer's boundary personnel to aid in facilitating the flow of those resources to the seller. The paper also includes the softer human aspects in the dimensions of value. These latter aspects are important to a full assessment of value. The paper concludes with a discussion of aspects of intangible relationship value that need further elucidation and will thus provide opportunities for future research.

Building trust and living interpersonal trust are crucial corporate executive virtues that are needed today. Once you have developed and solidified a high level of genuine interpersonal trust with all your stakeholders, especially customers, suppliers, and employees, then you are on the right path of managing and transforming your company. A high level of interpersonal trust between all stakeholders and corporates in a business situation will break down communication barriers, foster serious conversation and sharing of ideas, and will eliminate corporate transactional anxieties of fear, mistrust, guilt, rigidity, blame, and resentment. When stakeholders trust you and you trust them, then you speak freely, they speak freely, and your mutual sustained transparency is a gateway to survival, revival, and sustained corporate recovery and transformation, and steady growth and prosperity. Conversely, when there is low trust, high mistrust, and high distrust among stakeholders in a business situation, communications and conversations are stressed and fragmented, teamwork and team spirit are very low, and the company is heading toward its ruin and extermination. Such is the crucial role of interpersonal trust in business. This chapter explores the crucial phenomenon of corporate interpersonal trust. We review various cases, models, concepts, definitions, and theories of trust from the management literature in general, and from the marketing field in particular, to derive psychological, behavioral, ethical, and moral principles of corporate trust, trusting relations, and trusting strategies.

This study examines the roles of market and learning orientations in relationship quality between exporters in transition economies and their foreign importers and subsequently, export performance. A random sample of 283 export firms in Vietnam provides evidence to support the hypothesized main effects. The results further indicate that learning orientation plays a role in building high-quality relationships for both new and mature relationships. However, the impact of market orientation on relationship quality is found only in the new relationship. In addition, firm-ownership structure does not moderate the relationships between learning orientation, market orientation, relationship quality, and export performance.

This chapter reviews emergent research streams as a basis for a dynamic multilevel perspective on organizational buying behavior that can link seminal studies to more contemporary issues raised by managers and scholars alike. Since Johnston and Lewin's (1996) review, the literature does not include a comprehensive analysis of recent themes or general directions. From a managerial perspective, some of these issues that need coverage include the following questions. What are the best practices for integrating the organizational buying process with product design, development, and innovation? How can technology, media, and automation be leveraged in the buying process? For supplier relationships in which trust and commitment have been established, what are the best practices for using this to build competitive advantage? What are the best practices for leveraging the brands of products or services that are not owned by a firm? What are the best practices for managing buying processes across international markets?

The chapter focuses on brand image and its role in business relationship initiation. The chapter takes the perspective of personal brands, CEO branding in particular, and discusses how brand image of the CEO affects the establishment of new relationships. The corporate brand image provides a first insight into, for instance, perceived quality, while the CEO brand is a strategic combination of the CEO image and CEO reputation. An empirical case study exemplifies and illustrates how the corporate brand and the CEO brand interlink. The reader learns that a strong CEO brand may outperform the corporate brand in the initial stage of establishing new business relationships. Trust and commitment are highlighted through the case, inducing that business relationship performance is dependent on personal interaction and network bonds between the actors. The personal brand of the CEO is an important element in branding strategies and a strategic tool for organizations active in the B2B domain. This relates specially to partner selection and the stage of initiating business relationships. Furthermore, both rational and emotional factors are considered when business partners evaluate each other, in search for information and cues as regards the history of the partner. Eventually, trust is created between the partners, and the relationship is initiated.

This paper presents an empirical analysis of trade credit supplied by Japanese manufacturing firms and General Trading Companies. After reviewing major trade credit models and relevant Japanese literature, empirical tests examine the applicability of existing trade credit theories. Results indicate existing trade credit theory has little power to explain the level of trade credit supplied by Japanese firms. Instead, support is found for the information and risk sharing models in the Japanese keiretsu literature and the financial channeling process by which lending institutions supply General Trading Companies with liquidity that is, in turn, supplied to manufacturing firms.

This paper reports the results of a three-year-long research on business relationships, relying on qualitative data gathered through multiple-case study research of four focal companies operating in Australia. The industry settings are as follows: steel construction, vegetable oils trading, aluminum and steel can manufacture, and imaging solutions. The research analyzes two main aspects of relationships: structure and process. This paper deals with structure describing it by the most desired features of intercompany relationships for each focal company. The primary research data have been coded drawing on extant research into business relationships. The main outcome of this part of the research is a five construct model composed by trust, commitment, bonds, distance, and information sharing that accounts for all informants’ utterances about relationship structure.