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Managers and academics alike focus on value creation in business relationships. This paper adds to existing literature by analyzing functions of business relationships and their impact on value perception. Applying a customer perspective, direct relationship functions are concerned about payment, quality, and volume. Indirect functions include innovation, access, and scouting. Furthermore, trust and number of alternative suppliers are included in the study. The empirical results illustrate the important role of direct and indirect functions for value creation. Understanding these functions is instrumental for driving customer value, both for the supplier and the seller. Direct functions do have a much stronger impact on value than indirect functions that still do have a significant impact. Thus, increasing direct function fulfillment is much more effective in order to gain key supplier status than relying only on indirect functions. But indirect functions may offer ample differentiation opportunities. Being a strong driver of relationship value, trust is also driven by function fulfillment. Thus, relationship value depends on rational elements (functions) and social elements (trust). Availability of alternative suppliers increases the importance of relationship function fulfillment on customer value and customer trust. In highly competitive markets, suppliers need clear understanding and communication of relationship value in order to succeed.

Firms enter into exchanges so that they can create value for themselves as well as their customers. Day's concept of customer value equations is reviewed and the concept of supplier value equations is introduced. Then the manner in which these two types of value equation can be used to identify opportunities for enhancing supplier and customer value is demonstrated.

Examines a Japanese‐owned customer organization in Britain which has adopted Kaizen (continuous improvement) programmes in order to discover what effect this has had on the internal organization of its suppliers. With a particular interest in HRM and workforce training, uses a questionnaire and case studies to illuminate the changes made in supplier organizations and the mechanisms which support these developments. The evidence suggests that 63 per cent of supplier organizations studied have made changes, with the leading changes being made in the areas of quality management and workforce training as they have become more open to examination by the customer organization and with the increased emphasis on quality. Concludes that increasing adoption of Kaizen or TQM by customer organizations has implications for personnel and HRM functions in supplier organizations, and that the traditionally self‐contained boundaries of companies will become less rigid.

The purpose of this study is to examine what happens to human relationships when a family business is handed off to the next generation. The second generation, to succeed, must work to nurture and sustain current customer, supplier, and employee relationships so as not to damage existing goodwill. As power is transferred from the founder of the family business to the next generation, organizational issues and the leadership style of the successor take center stage.

This is strictly a conceptual paper designed for the practitioner. There is no empirical study therein, only theoretical frameworks to guide practitioners and family business owners. It is meant to be informational with many useful “tips” for family business succession.

Relationships with valuable human resources, such as current customers, suppliers, and employees must receive the attention they deserve to avoid negatively impacting organizational brand equity. Failure to nurture supplier relationships can increase costs and access. Neglected customer relationships may cause the loss of key members of these groups, contributing significantly to second-generation business failures. Damaged employee relationships cause expensive turnover, loss in customers, and negative word of mouth. Research suggests that only 30 per cent of businesses survive into the second generation and even less (about 13 per cent) into the third generation (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015).

The next step would be to test the propositions using both qualitative and quantitative research, beginning with interviews of second-generation family business owners. The interviews would test the successor-generations’ attitudes and behaviors toward established customers, suppliers, and employees. Attitudes would be measured on a Likert scale to explore the perceived importance of current customers, employees, and suppliers to the new owner. Issues of commitment, responsibility, loyalty, friendship, respect, and caring would also be measured to evaluate how relationship-friendly the new owner is. Levels of retention of key stakeholders would then be correlated with the firm’s financial success or failure to see if there is any statistically significant relationship.

Establishing and maintaining strong trust relationships will socially bond customers, employees, and suppliers to the organization. Introduction of a second generation changes the dynamics of these relationships, so care is critical, as customers, suppliers, and employees become anxious with change. Relationship management is about nurturing customer relationships, honoring supplier arrangements, and developing employees. Consistent care toward trusted human resources creates brand equity (or monetary value). Naturally, family businesses start small and understand the value of each relationship, but as the business passes from the founder to the second generation, these loyal, trusted relationships may be tested. It is up to the successor to assure customers, suppliers, and employees that they are a valued part of the operation. Inability to do this will likely lead to an erosion of the business’ loyal base and may precipitate in failure of the firm for the successor.

The social implications revolve around acceptable human interaction and proper treatment of individuals who are critical to the small family business’ success. As a family business passes from the founder to the second generation, loyal, trusted relationships may be tested. It is up to the successor to assure customers, suppliers, and employees that they are a valued part of the operation. Inability to do this will likely lead to an erosion of the business’ loyal base and may precipitate in failure of the firm for the successor.

It is original in that it is practitioner-oriented and full of useful tips for the family business owner. None of the information contained therein is novel. It is a consensus or compilation of useful information packaged for a practitioner.

We illustrate how multi-sided retail marketplaces enabled by a digital platform, engage suppliers, creating new rules of retail altogether. Specifically, we describe how these marketplaces create relational value for their suppliers, as through marketplaces like Amazon.com, suppliers are fully integrated members of the value-exchange relationship with the platform’s end-customers.

This paper is the result of a study of three leading marketplaces. We compared the marketplaces to understand the impact of the platform economy on the retail industry, including on the governance mechanisms and earnings logic. We identified supplier management as a key theme in our analysis, as on marketplaces such as Amazon.com, the management of supplier relationships differs from more traditional forms of retail, as in platforms, supplier quality reflects strongly on the reputation and reliability of the marketplace.

Our findings show that in addition to well-known customer engagement processes, the marketplaces also have supplier engagement processes in-place. Through engagement processes, marketplaces are able to lock-in suppliers, thus increasing the total value of the marketplace. For suppliers, marketplaces create relational value, in an industry where competition has traditionally centered on price, selection and location.

Thus far, studies have shown that companies differentiate through customer engagement. This paper looks at the same phenomena from the supplier side. We contribute to the understanding of complementor management in the platform economy. Based on our study, we expect that the novel concept of supplier engagement will transform how retailers interact with suppliers.

As global markets grow increasingly efficient, competition no longer takes place between individual businesses, but between entire supply chains. Collaboration can provide the competitive edge that enables all the business partners in a supply chain to prevail and grow. This paper presents a framework for customer‐supplier collaboration that facilitates effective and efficient supply chain operation. The paper reveals that the level of involvement of customers and suppliers differs across different supply chain processes and also across different sectors. While the involvement of customers is high in demand management and product development, the involvement of suppliers is high in transportation and inventory management processes. The paper also reveals that about 50 percent of the organizations surveyed indicate that suppliers and customers have little or virtually no role in the demand management, inventory management, and product development processes.

Discusses the work of a research group set up to explore an aspect of Dr. Deming′s philosophy, that being to end the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag and instead, minimize total cost and move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long‐term relationship of loyalty and trust. Considers customer/supplier relationships based on four major interrelated areas: management style; communication; alternative customer/supplier; measurement, with “win‐win” between the parties concerned being the ultimate aim and concludes that, because of the interdependence of the four areas, there is a driving force from the improvement process to work on all of them at the same time.

Based on resource dependence theory (RDT) and transaction cost theory (TCT), we aim to investigate the relationship between supply chain concentration and firm performance. Based on the resource-based perspective, we further investigate the moderating effect of marketing and operational capabilities on the relationship between supply chain concentration and firm performance.

Based on data from 2,082 firms with 8,371 observations from 2008 to 2020 in China, we use stochastic frontier analysis to calculate marketing capability and operational capability and use multinational regressions to test our research model.

We find a U-shaped relationship between supplier concentration and firm performance; there is also a U-shaped relationship between customer concentration and firm performance. In addition, the relationship between supplier concentration and firm financial performance is strengthened by the firm’s marketing capability, and the relationship between customer concentration and firm financial performance is weakened by the firm’s operational capability.

Drawing from RDT and TCT, this study extends the research on the impact of supply chain concentration on firm performance. The study finds that supply chain concentration and firm performance have a nonlinear relationship, and it is further moderated by marketing capability and operational capability, providing insights for managers.

An emerging body of literature has pinpointed the role of supply chain structure in influencing the extent to which supply chain members disclose information about their internal practices and performance. Nevertheless, empirical research investigating the effects of firm-level relational embeddedness on network-level transparency still lags. Drawing on social network analysis, this research examines the effect of relational embeddedness on supply chain transparency and the contingent role of digitalization in the context of environmental, social and governance (ESG) information disclosure.

In their empirical analysis, the authors collected secondary data from the Bloomberg database about 2,229 firms and 14,007 ties organized in 107 extended supply chains. The authors employed supplier and customer concentration metrics to measure relational embeddedness and performed multiple econometric models to test the hypothesis.

The authors found a positive effect of supplier concentration on supply chain transparency, but the effect of customer concentration was not significant. Additionally, the digitalization of focal firms reinforced the impact of supplier concentration on supply chain transparency.

The study findings contribute by underscoring the critical effect of relational embeddedness on supply chain transparency, extending prior literature on social network analysis, providing compelling evidence for the intersection of digitalization and supply chain management, and drawing important implications for practices.

Drawing on the social presence theory, this study aims to explore how supplier–customer social media interactions influence supplier observers’ trust in the customers and what mechanisms contribute to variation in trust experience.

A total of 36 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Chinese suppliers using WeChat for business-to-business interactions. Data were analyzed in three steps: open coding, axial coding and selective coding.

Findings reveal that varied trust is based not only on the categories of social presence of interaction – whether social presence is embedded in informative interactions – but also on the perceived selectivity in social presence. Observer suppliers who experience selectivity during social and affective interactions create a perception of hidden information and an unhealthy relationship atmosphere, and report a sense of emotional vulnerability, thus eroding cognitive and affective trust.

The findings contribute new understandings to social presence theory by exploring the social presence of interactions in a supplier–supplier–customer triad and offer valuable insights into business-to-business social media literature by adopting a suppliers’ viewpoint to unpack the mechanisms of how social presence of interaction positively and negatively influences suppliers’ trust and behavioral responses.