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Perspective-taking is an overlooked relational competence that matters to interaction, problem-solving and cooperation in inter-organizational buyer–seller relationships. This paper aims to distinguish perspective-taking from empathy with which it has often been associated. It uses aptitude theory to propose a conceptualization of perspective-taking consisting of perspective-taking ability and motivation components that are used to explore the scope of perspective-taking in customer–supplier relationships.

An experiment and survey, are conducted among customer managers to apply and test measures to capture the ability and motivation components of the perspective-taking aptitude. The two perspective-taking components are used to propose a 2 × 2 matrix that provides a four-type typology, labelled: “talented”, “ineffectual”, “fervent” and “indifferent”. Data are collected from a sample of senior managers of manufacturing firms responsible for the dyadic relationship with a business support agency.

The data supports the presence and distribution of the four typologies among customers in business relationships and regression analysis confirms the impact of the proposed perspective-taking typology types on customer–supplier cooperation. The different combinations of the perspective-taking dimensions of ability and motivation that make up the perspective-taking aptitude type result in different dispositions to cooperate. “Talented” and “ineffectual” members with high and low perspective-taking ability and motivation scores, respectively, provide the highest and lowest cooperation dispositions. “Fervent” and “indifferent” members occupy an intermediate perspective-taking aptitude on the typology, with the former impacting cooperation moderately and the latter not found to be significant.

Understanding counterparts, inferring their motives and anticipating reactions, is a critical capacity for mutual dyadic adjustments in customer–supplier relationships in business markets. Such an understanding of perspective-taking can prove useful to effective interaction, solution development and relationship building, as interacting managers belonging to different typology types exhibit different levels of cooperation. In addition, an understanding of perspective-taking can prove useful to identify the right talent that can foster effective interaction and solution development in customer–supplier relationships. It also raises the issue as to how best sellers can interact to influence the perspective-taking of buyers in their quest to achieve better solutions and cooperation.

Provides a useful supplement to theory by bringing perspective-taking, grounded in aptitude theory, as an essential relational competence in business marketing that can provide an additional explanation to cooperation and joint problem-solving in inter-organizational business relationships. The paper develops and proposes a typology of perspective-taking that brings together ability and motivation dimensions, operationalizes and assessed their measures and tests the impact of the proposed perspective-taking typology types on cooperation in customer–supplier interaction.

This paper extends the discussion on stability and change through focus on specific relationship characteristics. Quality management systems prescribe established routines for supplier selection and monitoring, and may thereby designate the nature and longevity of customer–supplier relationships. The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss the effects of quality management systems on stability and change in different forms of customer–supplier relationships.

A number of illustrative examples based on participatory data and interviews help to capture different types of customer–supplier relationships (private/public; certified/non-certified) related to quality management systems.

While certified customers in most sectors only need to prove that their suppliers have procedures in place, many customers equate this with requiring that their suppliers should be certified. The paper further shows that customers replace deeper understandings for their suppliers’ procedures with the requirement that they be certified.

The paper contributes to the existing literature through integrating quality management systems literature with the business network approach. For business network studies, the discussion on quality management systems as constricting regimes is interesting and provides practical insights to the business network studies as such quality management systems increase in importance and spread.

The paper aims to investigate how business-to-business key accounts deal with the consequent tension between cooperation and competition, and how they can resolve that relational paradox, using framework contracts.

The paper argues that the role played by framework contracts can be ambivalent: as a tool to define cooperation with suppliers while simultaneously organising competition within suppliers, but by formalising such ambivalence, it does help to ease the tensions that may arise. To clarify such a conceptual and counter-intuitive ambivalence, the paper uses a case study that shows how framework contracts are used to solve the inherent tensions between cooperation with “preferred suppliers” and their price competition with invited “challengers”, in a competitive bidding situation.

This study is a first step in an investigation of the role of framework contracts in a customer-supplier relationship, aiming to explain their use as they highlight the “coopetitive” nature of the relationship, turning it into something tangible and psychologically acceptable.

Because of the complexity of vertical “coopetition” and the research method adopted, the findings may not be generally applicable.

This research offers an enlarged perspective for suppliers as well as customers to think over their own relationships (in an industrial setting).

Little research has been conducted to date on vertical coopetition and the role and effects of framework contracts in the context of such complex customer-supplier relationships. This case study offers insights for practising managers and academics into the effective use of framework contracts.

The need for long‐term relationships between customer and supplier has been suggested for some time. The literature of supply chain management often compares customer‐supplier relationships to a marriage. The purpose of this paper is to apply results of research on successful families to supply chain management in order to improve these critical business relationships.

The family strengths research is based on surveys and interviews of more than 6,000 successful families over a period exceeding 20 years, and has been summarized in six characteristics of successful families, which are used as the basis of a model of a successful supply chain relationship. The proposed model for successful supply chain relationships is then compared with the existing literature that addresses relationship success and failure.

Support for the characteristics in the supply chain relationships model was found in the literature. One weakness of the model was the failure to explicitly emphasize supplier performance.

The characteristics of principles‐centered relationships and the need for appreciation were new contributions. Generally, this aspect is not emphasized in the supply chain management literature. The supply chain relationships model provides a conceptual framework that should be useful in communicating the desired final state.

This study aims to examine the antecedents of relationship learning in partnerships and develop a research model that explains relationship learning through three complementary constructs: relational practices, social capital and suppliers' relationship‐specific investments.

The study examines data drawn from interviews regarding 195 customer‐supplier relationships from the metal and electronics industries. In terms of methodology, the study employs structural equation modelling.

The findings indicate that relational practices, social capital and supplier's relationship‐specific investments explain relationship learning to a great extent.

The present study has some limitations, such as the use of cross‐sectional data and a limited sample size. More empirical research is needed on the antecedents and mechanisms of relationship learning as well as the interactions among antecedents.

The results suggest that companies must be able to facilitate the development of relational practices, social capital and suppliers' relationship‐specific investments, as these constructs explain relationship learning largely.

The prior literature lacks empirical evidence on the antecedents of relationship learning, particularly in the context of partnerships. The present study demonstrates a significant impact of three antecedent constructs on relationship learning.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the effects of the customer‐supplier relationship and of automatic forecast data communication and registration on the perceived information quality of forecasts.

A conceptual model and three hypotheses are derived. The empirical analysis is based on survey data from 219 Swedish manufacturing companies.

Findings show that the customer‐supplier relationship and automatic data communication and registration have significant impact on the perceived quality of forecast information received from a downstream customer in the supply chain. The reliability and timeliness of the forecast information are affected to about the same extent by both the relationship type and the data communication and registration strategy. Credibility is correlated with the relationship type, while the completeness, validity and conciseness of the received forecast are operative issues depending mainly on the communication strategy.

Using single informants, focal customers and some single‐item constructs in research design.

The paper explains how various dimensions of forecast information quality are affected by different factors, thus guiding how to differentiate information quality improvement work in diverse situations.

Detailed empirical studies of supply chain information exchange, especially focusing on explaining causes of high‐quality information exchange, are lacking in the literature and demanded in industry.

This study aims to examine the influence of relational capital quality on client loyalty, comprising both behavioral and attitudinal, in the pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan.

The partial least squares technique is used to test the relationship using a sample of 111 pharmaceutical firms. We applied a non-parametric procedure, the bootstrapping method, to estimate the coefficient path of the relationships. Appropriate construct measures were used based on past studies to measure the dimensions of relational capital quality and client loyalty.

The findings suggest that relational capital quality significantly affects client loyalty. All three dimensions of relational capital quality, commitment, satisfaction and trust, have a significant and positive influence on both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. However, client satisfaction is found to exert the strongest impact on behavioral and attitudinal loyalty.

It is important for the pharmaceutical firms in Pakistan to improve client satisfaction to establish behavioral loyalty and sustain their clientele base. Trust and commitment should be managed independently, depending on the focus of firms, either attitudinal loyalty or behavioral loyalty.

This study is among the few that was able to empirically examine the role of various dimensions of relational capital quality in influencing clients’ attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. In addition, the study uses a new firm-level data set, compiled from a survey of the pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan, which is currently facing challenges in terms of customer–supplier sensitivity.

International competition, the rapid pace of technological development, the escalating cost of research and development, truncated shelf life, the ability through information technology to evaluate the cost of poor quality, abbreviated product development cycles, all combine to create an environment for the accelerated growth of customer‐service alliances. In reviewing the forces behind these alliances, the article outlines the need for a systematic model outlining the stages of growth involved in such alliances. After exploring marriage and new job management integration as potential models, the article examines the validity of a proven model from the natural sciences as a means to manage customer‐service alliances better. The model outlines both the four critical stages of growth – sparse, confluent, aligned, fused – and the medium necessary if the alliance is to flourish.

Previous research found that customer financial distress can spillover to supplier firm decisions. The aim of this paper is to examine the investment decisions of suppliers of financially distressed customers.

The paper uses a US sample of customer-supplier relationships from Compustat Segments between 1980 and 2017. The author uses a linear probability model in the baseline regression analysis. To ensure robustness, a logit regression model and an instrumental variable estimation approach are used, instrumenting for distress at the customer level using a negative shock to customer industry demand.

This study finds suppliers are more likely to reduce their investment in Capex when a customer is financially distressed. Supplier investment efficiency does not improve when a customer is financially distressed as suppliers with a greater likelihood of under-investment reduce their investment, while suppliers with a greater likelihood of over-investment increase their investment. The effect of customer distress on supplier investment decisions is more pronounced for suppliers of economically distressed customers.

This paper examines how suppliers adjust their investment in response to customer distress, providing an additional channel through which customer distress affects suppliers. Overall, this study finds an important real implication of financial distress in the buyer-supplier relationship.

The marketing concept is an idea that has been adopted in non‐marketing contexts, such as the relationships between universities and their students. This paper aims to posit that marketing metaphors are inappropriate to describe the student‐university relationship.

The authors provide a conceptual discussion of the topic.

The use of marketing metaphors appears sometimes to be indiscriminate and the appropriateness to use them in student‐university relationships is questioned in this article.

This notion of students as customers has caused a misinterpretation of the relationship between universities and students.

Students should not be viewed as customers of the university, but as citizens of the university community. The contention contained within this paper is that the customer metaphor is inappropriate to describe students' relationships to universities.

The use of marketing buzzwords does not contribute to a correct description or an accurate understanding of the student‐university relationship. On the contrary, misconceptions and misunderstandings flourish due to misleading terminology and contradictory vocabulary. These frameworks tend to be illusionary if used in non‐marketing contexts, such as universities.