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The present competitive marketing environment demands effective role of distribution channels to create and develop a value-based infrastructure where companies can easily distribute their products into the consumers’ market. Relationship bonding between the channel partners and the company strengthens marketing efficiencies of the distribution function, which is supported by policies of the companies relating to joint business actions and value sharing. Both the tangible functional value and emotional functionalities play a vital role in the continuous success and the growth of distribution channel. The purpose of this paper is to understand the value-based distribution channel relationship for greater channel equity in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector.

The present study used a survey design to collect data from 156 FMCG channel members selected through stratified random sampling procedure. A five-point Likert-type scale was personally administered to obtain participants’ responses. Data were analysed using the Relative to an Identified Distribution (RIDIT) approach.

The findings of the current research paper have demonstrated that in the current competitive marketing environment, only the functional values are not enough. This research paper identifies that there is a strong need of emotional touch and linkages which leads to a symbiotic channel–company relationship and commitments in FMCG industry.

The present research is an original and innovative thought process of evaluating factors influencing the value-based distribution channel relationship for greater channel equity pertaining to FMCG industry by using the RIDIT approach.

This paper presents a systematic method for classifying research on international channels of distribution. It is used to examine 79 articles published during an 18‐year period (1988‐2005). Based on content analysis, each article is classified by its primary research framework. Two frameworks are identified: (1) structural ‐ based on the economic and organizational aspects of international channels of distribution; and (2) behavioral ‐ based on the exchange relationship between channel members from different national environments. This simple organizing system offers a comprehensive way to analyze scholarship that has emerged in the field. For managers, it can bring the theoretical and practical developments together in an understandable fashion as they seek to interpret and apply research findings. For scholars, it may bring focus to an increasingly complex area of international business and guide future research efforts.

This study aims to examine theoretical insights from market orientation and resource-based view for enhancing grocery retailers ' distribution capabilities. The distribution capability of a firm can influence both effective and efficient handling of external stocks and internal distribution of products in response to changing market demands. Although firms rely on distribution capability to manage their supply chain to ensure the right products are in the right place at the right time, few studies examine the underlying factors that support distribution capabilities for a firm’s upstream and downstream supply chain activities especially in uncertain environments.

In the context of retail firms, a review of the literature shows that distribution capability can be conceptualized as an interfirm phenomenon based on theoretical insights from the resource-based view, market orientation and network structure.

Data from a sample of 247 small- and medium-sized grocery retailers operating in three major Chinese cities highlight a salient and positive relationship between a retailer’s distribution capabilities and its performance in uncertain environments.

However, a retailer’s strong interfirm relations in a distribution network are negatively associated with retailer performance. Similarly, the influence of interfirm market orientation on retailer performance cannot be established in the supply chain. The study suggests that SME grocery retailers would benefit from understanding their numerous supply chain relationships and managing them (rather than relying on centrally ingrained relationships), and developing behavioral norms of interfirm market orientation among different supply chain partners.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the shifting perspectives on the organising and the managing of “distribution”, characterised as channels, systems or networks.

The paper is based on a review of previous research, identifying three periods featuring diverse conceptualisations: the early distribution literature, the channel management perspective and today’s network approaches.

The study shows that the early literature relied on holistic framings. This perspective was replaced by the narrower channel management view, influenced by concepts from two evolving approaches: marketing management and behavioural/social schools-of-thought. Changing business conditions eroded the basis for channel management and paid the way for current arrangements, featuring network-like conditions.

Several reviews of distribution have been published, primarily focusing on the specific features of the perspectives applied. This paper emphasises dynamic aspects by attempting to explain how and why new perspectives emerge and the reasons for their reduced significance over time.

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors of change in business relationships among companies operating in agribusiness input distribution channel.

This study, based on a qualitative approach applying network perspective, is focused on agri-markets for plant protection products. Primary data were collected via individual in-depth interviews with among managers of trade companies operating on agri-inputs products market.

Although relation between input producers and trade companies on agri-inputs market is affected by a large number of factors, representatives of trade companies seem to be focused on a limited number of them. In particular two factors need to be underlined as main ones: contract conditions and structural changes on the markets which manifest themselves mainly by consolidation of market entities. The function differentiation of the trade companies results not only in generated sales but also in a larger intensity of interactions with other market operators and in the necessity of creating new relationships. In the long term, it may generate the intensification of competitive structures that occur at the same level in a distribution channel.

Generalization based on qualitative approach employed in this paper requires further testing and quantitative validation.

Even though agri-markets appear to be well-suited for studying network systems, such an approach has hardly ever been used. Interactions between different kinds of entities on agri-markets are incredibly strong and complex. The paper contributes to the two fields. First, it provides results related to the business relationship dynamics, especially factors that trigger relation change. Second, paper contributes to the agribusiness markets theory, especially from the structural point of view.

This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.

The purpose of this paper is to address the effects of deep environmental changes on business network actors’ behaviors. The consequences of political, institutional, and socio-economic changes on Tunisian automotive spare-parts distribution networks during the past five years are examined. The authors chose the Tunisian automotive spare-parts distribution network for several important reasons. Most importantly, it gave us a unique platform to study the aftermath of deep political, socio-economic, and governance shocks caused by the Jasmin Revolution on a historically stable, simple, and productive business network within the import-dependent Tunisian spare-parts distribution system.

A qualitative, exploratory research project was conducted in Tunisia to assess and interpret changes in actors’ behaviors and business relationships within the automobile parts aftermarket due to major social, economic, and political upheavals. Automobile parts jobbers served as principal source of data for investigations. Jobbers were selected as key respondents because of the middle and pivotal position they occupy in Tunisian automobile parts distribution channels. For this reason, they were able to provide insightful and compelling information about business relationships with upstream channel members such as manufacturers and wholesalers as well as with downstream channel members such as retailers, repair shop owners, and repair technicians.

The authors found that seismic political, socio-economic, and interpersonal relationship shocks to institutions significantly impacted the behaviors of key actors in those networks, which, in turn, altered the nature and conduct of business within those networks. Profound changes in the companies’ external environment provoked changes in the companies’ proximate relationships and business dealings. In the short-run, these changes brought more conflictual and more short-term and selfish behaviors on the part of network actors in their ongoing business relationships. In long term, the increased volatility and uncertainty will likely bring wanted and unwanted institutional changes which, in turn, will likely create new forms of behaviors, relationships, and business networks. This new situation will cause a distrust between distribution actors and among notorious automotive brand names that are counterfeit and sold as genuine brand.

As in the case of qualitative methodology, this research has several limitations. One of them is the focus on jobbers. Although the choice of jobbers as a key respondent is justified by their middle role between the importer wholesalers as their suppliers and the repair shops as their clients, the views of these other actors are not directly mirrored in the research. Another limit is that only the most important jobbers were asked who were generally threatened by the counterfeit products and who did not deal with those products. Thus, the view of the new actors is missing from the picture.

Managers must pay attention to potentially dangerous combinations of elements which, when taken together, may prompt self-serving and destructive behaviors that may threaten the continued prosperity of long-standing business relationships and networks. As in the Tunisian case, the lower the level of compliance combined with the availability of low price, counterfeit or imported goods dramatically increased the level of short-term, malevolent relationship-destroying behaviors. Perhaps the greatest danger to overall network prosperity comes when short-term opportunism replaces the pursuit of long-term mutual benefits. Research has long demonstrated that high-involvement long-term relationships are essential for distribution companies’ growth and sustained performance.

Given the immediacy of the revolution and the paucity of research on channels in developing North African nations, this work stands to make a timely contribution to the literature. The influence of weak institutions (including governments) is a unique and important contribution. Other unique contribution is the introduction of counterfeit goods into consideration showing their role in the changes of actors’ behavior and in the possible source of conflicts.

The paper focuses on the assessment of practices reflective of relationship marketing and those that can be associated with “Asian values”. The argument that is often put forward is whether there really exists what can be regarded as “Asian values” since there are no common values in life that can be adopted by all Asian societies and with which all in this region can be identified. Yet, the term “Asian values” is still widely used to depict Asians’ attitudes in general, their beliefs and the way they work. This study, therefore, explores current practices among members in the Malaysian grocery distribution channels that may indicate elements of relationship marketing or work practices commonly associated with “Asian values”.

A conceptual model was developed of distribution channel members′ manifest conflicts and their satisfaction. From this model, hypotheses are generated, aimed at untangling the causal relationship between these two constructs. Both a meta‐analysis of previous research and this first longitudinal study of distribution channel behaviour in the aircraft industry in North America of distribution channel behaviour uncovered a negative, contemporaneous relationship between satisfaction and conflict. Empirical study in the channel for an industrial product found the effect of channel member satisfaction over time to be mediated by the extent of manifest conflict. The impact of manifest conflict was found to be mediated by the degree of channel member satisfaction. In other words, channel member satisfaction and manifest conflict within the channel were both antecedents and consequences of each other.

One of the main functions of culture is division of labour among various actors in society. Since the global environment is characterised by diverse and deep‐rooted cultural norms and value systems, the nature of this division of labour across cultures should exhibit systematic differences. Channels of distribution are primarily designed to facilitate division of labour, and channel relationships should therefore reflect the underlying cultural tenets of society. Using Hofstede′s schemata to classify various national cultures, a series of propositions is generated on how distribution channel relationships will vary across countries based on their positions on Hofstede′s four dimensions of culture.