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This paper aims to highlight the importance of relational resources (trust and relationship effectiveness). The authors investigate how the Chinese guanxi is utilized to create and develop service exploitation and exploration activities for adopting non-technological innovations.

This study surveyed 252 Chinese and Taiwanese firms. The results were analyzed through structural equation model.

Relational antecedents of collaborative communication and constructive conflict positively relate to trust, as well as to relationship effectiveness. Constructive conflict positively relates to exploration and exploitation. Relationship effectiveness and trust mediate two relational antecedents to exploitation. Relationship effectiveness crucially mediates two relational antecedents to exploration.

Dyadic data would be more desirable to study firm interactions.

Chinese society perceives conflict as being detrimental to relationships. Constructive conflict enhances inter-firm trust and relationship effectiveness. Relationship effectiveness, which motivates suppliers to mobilize their guanxi network, mediates the supplier–customer interaction in broadening relationships to produce new services, as well as reinforcing networks to strengthen existing ventures.

This study contributes to a relatively under-explored relationship effectiveness area. Chinese suppliers capitalize their guanxi networks to achieve competitive advantages in non-technological innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of social capital and relationship quality on key account management (KAM) effectiveness.

Based on the literature, the authors designed a framework that links social capital, relationship quality and KAM effectiveness. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire. Using data from a sample of 172 business-to-business supplier firms, the authors examined this model.

The research results provide empirical support to the importance of relational aspects of KAM by showing how the relational aspects of relationship quality and social capital influence the effectiveness of the supplier-key account relationship.

The authors add to the literature on relational KAM by integrating theoretical perspectives on social capital, relationship quality and KAM. They develop a model that investigates the antecedents of the effectiveness of supplier–key account relationships from a relational perspective. The study explains the relationships between six constructs representing social capital (ability, benevolence, integrity, flexibility, information exchange and solidarity) and three constructs representing relationship quality (trust, satisfaction and relationship atmosphere), together with the relationships between these three constructs of relationship quality and KAM effectiveness.

The research first and uniquely explores the antecedent relationship among three highly studied environmental forces – competitive intensity (CI), market turbulence (MT) and technological turbulence (TT) – in a service context. Next, given the importance of services to the USA and global gross domestic product (GDP) and the unique characteristics of services versus product firms, the research examines the impact of environmental forces on innovation speed capability, a less studied but critical enabler of service innovation. Finally, this study aims to suggest the importance of the sequential relationship between two dynamic capabilities – innovation speed and operational flexibility – to realize advantage.

This study surveyed 264 US service firms in a business to business context and tested this research model using structural equation modeling.

The results yielded three major conclusions: in a service context when examining the relationship among the three environmental forces, CI appears to have the driving influence on MT and TT, MT, however, was the only environmental force that this study found to bare positive and significant direct influence on innovation speed. Looking at the zero-order effect of MT and TT on innovation speed this study found each to be positive and significant suggesting a negative suppression effect and innovation speed’s influence on performance relative to competitors is fully mediated by operational flexibility.

The paper contributes to context, as service firms represent the majority of the USA and global GDP. This study extends the literature on the highly studied environmental forces (MT, TT and CI) by examining how they influence each other in an antecedent role and in service context. This study extends service literature by going beyond the influence of environmental forces on innovation to examine the dynamic capability of innovation speed, suggested as uniquely important to service context and distinct from the more highly studied innovation construct. The study also extends prior research in the manufacturing (product) context that suggests the importance of sequential congruence between two critical dynamic capabilities – innovation speed and operational flexibility – necessary to deliver competitive advantage.