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This study aims to examine the design of effective support systems for micro‐, small‐ and medium‐sized enterprise (MSME) development at the local and regional level in China.

The paper calls on the experience of China, in fostering the fastest growing MSME sector in the world over the past 20 years, to suggest a paradigm based upon the Chinese guanxi model of relationships.

The paper argues that the extensive international experience has not been massively successful and that the application of a stricter market‐led approach to the provision of MSME business development services will not be successful if it ignores the way that western “institutionalism” dictates the supply offer.

It is argued that the model of entrepreneurial networking and relationships demands a fundamental repositioning of policy support and a major reorganisation of the way that knowledge is made explicit and disseminated to MSMEs.

The paper explores what is termed as a stakeholder relationship model for the entrepreneur, the policy maker and the local delivery agent.

Relationship development is presented as an optimal strategy across all sectors of economic activity, although relationships, and their appropriateness, vary by industry sector. In order to contribute to academic and managerial understanding of relationships in professional business services, this study aims to investigate the characteristics of relationship development in management consultancy.

Data collection involved semi‐structured interviews with both consultants and clients and employed a multilevel perspective for the investigation of relationships.

The findings provide a more nuanced reading of relationships and relationship development. First, a distinction between within‐project and between‐projects relationships and the important strategic implications which flow from these two different types of relationships are identified. Second, a distinction between relationship‐seekers and relationship‐switchers, and the resource allocation decisions associated with managing these two different client groups are identified.

This is an exploratory study based on a qualitative methodology and thus no claims are made about generalizability. The study primarily aimed to achieve a theoretical generalization. The emerging conceptualizations could be extended to and tested by other cases in future studies.

The study has implications for managers because of the insights it offers into the mechanisms for relationship development; the strategic value of relationships; what the clients have to say about relationships; and the elements that characterize successful long‐term relationships.

The study contributes to relationship management theory within services marketing by offering a more refined understanding of company‐client relationships, compared with the more generic interpretations of relationships which often characterize studies of relationship management.

Alliancing and partnering have been extensively used to stimulate collaborative relations between supply chain members as well as to address the need to improve the performance of projects. Recognising the need to build and sustain relationships in alliances, the paper aims to present a model that is developed and tested by industry practitioners who are regularly involved with alliance contracting. The developed model can be used to encourage a culture of reflective learning and mutual trust, beyond merely project‐specific performance outcomes.

To examine the applicability of the conceptual model to alliance contracting in construction an exploratory approach was adopted. A total of 49 in‐depth interviews were conducted over a six‐month period with a variety of industry practitioners (clients, contractors, design consultants, construction lawyers, and alliance facilitators) who had extensive experience with working in alliance contracts. Interviews were used as the mechanism to examine the themes and constructs identified from the literature.

The relationship development process represents a major contributor to successful alliance contracting and can add considerable value throughout the supply chain. There is a recognisable structure to relationship development that is underpinned by specific themes that should be considered when managing the alliance relationship. Trust and commitment are explicit elements that should be continually maintained in an alliance contract, and can significantly contribute to joint learning from joint problem‐solving activities. From the respondents' perspectives it appears that the entire process of relationship development hinged around individual relationships, trust and organizational development.

A three‐phase model for building alliances is developed and can be used by practitioners to improve the performance of projects.

It is suggested that the developed model can be used to promote a culture of reflective learning and mutual trust, beyond merely project‐specific performance outcomes.

The research develops a model for relationship development and maintenance in construction projects so that sustainable relationships can be established. The proposed model includes three phases: assessment, commitment and endurance. Being able to manage each of these phases effectively is critical for successful project delivery and stimulating innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how business-to-business (B2B), intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationships develop using the lens of identity management theory (IMT; Imahori and Cupach, 2005).

The research uses qualitative semi-structured interviews on 18 targeted relationships with customers from another culture conducted with business-to-business salespeople.

The findings indicate that our respondents' relationships moved from trial toward enmeshment and on occasion toward the renegotiation phase, as described in IMT. In the case of low cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships reached the trial and enmeshment phase. In the case of high cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships on occasion evolved toward the renegotiation phase. Salespeople's cultural intelligence (CQ) facilitates the development of interpersonal, intercultural salesperson–customer relationships.

The authors transfer IMT from the personal relationship development arena to B2B intercultural, interpersonal relationships, address a gap in the literature in the understanding of salesperson–customer interpersonal relationships in different contexts and develop a theoretical model to understand intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationship development across different levels of cultural diversity.

This study aims to examine how the widespread adoption of digital technology (DT) in business-to-business (B2B) markets affects and, in particular, increases the velocity of relationship development over time.

A literature search was conducted to develop propositions concerning DT’s effect on the various stages of an existing B2B buyer-seller relationship development model. A group of 55 experienced practitioners was used to obtain reactions to the propositions.

DT affects buyer-seller relationship development by reducing the time needed to initiate and advance through sequential relationship stages. Agility in the decision-making process fosters stronger inter-firm relationships and influences other important attributes of B2B relationships, such as organizational commitment, organizational embeddedness, trust and value creation.

A broader, more diverse sample of commercial buyers and sellers is required to permit testing the generalizability of the study’s findings.

DT affects the speed and agility of B2B relationship formation regardless of stage. As DT evolves in the age of Industry 4.0, an understanding of the effects of DT will aid managers in assessing ways to leverage its potential and apply appropriate DT strategies throughout the B2B relationship process to capitalize on current and future business opportunities. Firms need to explore the positive and negative effects of the digital revolution on managers within their supply chain networks.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that specifically addresses DT’s impact during the specific stages of the relationship development process.

This paper aims to clarify the meaning of Interactive Network Branding (INB) and demonstrate its importance for business relationship development, within a cross-cultural context of emerging markets (EM). More specifically, it integrates the idea of INB through its three branding dimensions into the first three relationship development stages introduced in the seminal article by Ford (1980). By bringing INB into relationship development, and by considering its embeddedness in a cultural context, the study extends current understanding of business relationships in connection to corporate branding.

The study is empirical and explorative. To reach the research aims, the authors apply a qualitative approach and present findings from four business relationships in two EM contexts, namely, the Croatian and Russian markets. Ten interviews have been undertaken, and the analysis was conducted by applying sensemaking and narrative approaches.

Findings show the influence of INB dimensions on three stages of business relationship development. In both EMs, the external dimension is found to be dominant for the pre-relationship stage while the internal dimension for the early stage. At the same time, mutual INB dimension, which is built on interpersonal interactions, is influencing each stage to a certain manner, while being a dominant dimension in the development stage. Also, the role of each dimension in a specific stage of relationship development is conditioned by the cultural context in which business relationships are embedded.

Based on the chosen qualitative research approach and focus on two countries, the findings might lack generalizability. Thus, future research is needed to observe business relationship development through INB dimensions in different cultural environments.

This paper provides a new perspective for managers on coping with the development of business relationships and branding in the EM context.

This is the first attempt to study business relationship development through branding perspective in general and INB perspective in particular. It builds a deeper understanding of identity, reputation and mutual INB dimension and their manifestation and influence on each relationship stage. In addition, the study has a cultural context, which makes it one of the rare cross-cultural studies related to branding in business marketing research.

This paper aims to evaluate the antecedents of franchise relationship development from the perspective of a sample of Chinese and Turkish franchisees.

This study explores relationship development through semi-structured interviews with Chinese and Turkish franchisees.

The findings of the study demonstrated that both the culturally adapted role performance of franchisors and communication geared towards knowledge transfer contribute to relationship development with franchisees.

This exploratory study evaluated the influence of role performance and communication as factors influencing relationship development. Further research could explore other factors in other countries and industries.

To build and develop long-term relationships with franchisees, franchisors need to invest in continuously improving their franchise infrastructures and enhancing their brand reputations. Communication and knowledge transfer between the franchisors and the franchisees are crucial for the management of dynamic relationships.

This paper advances franchising literature by offering a combined and complementary theoretical perspective to our understanding of the influence of power and social investments in relationship development between franchisees and franchisors. In particular, the study identifies role performance of franchisor and communication with franchisees as the key antecedents of relationship development.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the development of research based on the IMP approach during the four decades since the inauguration in 1976. The paper presents a network analysis of IMP research based on one of the central IMP frameworks: the ARA model.

The main activity analysed is the annual IMP conference. The development over time is described by comparison of three conferences (1984, 1998 and 2012) with regard to the themes of the papers presented. In addition, some joint research projects are described. The most central resources are the research frameworks and findings presented in books and journals. To illustrate this dimension, the authors have traced all IMP publications that had been cited more than 100 times in 2013. In the actor layer, the authors investigated the development over time of the distribution of publications and conference presentations on research groups.

The paper shows how IMP has evolved into a research network around common themes of which business relationships and networks are the most significant. The activities of various research groups have become increasingly interlinked through joint research programmes, annual conferences and seminars, a website and a dedicated journal.

The paper provides a detailed illustration of the development of the IMP network. The description of this process is of general relevance as an example of how research ideas can develop and become established in terms of a distinct research network.

This paper aims to identify and evaluate the factors which influence relationship development between franchisors and franchisees in international service franchise partnerships.

Case studies of two international hotel firms were the focus of the enquiry. Interviews and document analysis were used as the data collection techniques.

Findings demonstrate that role performance, asset specificity and cultural sensitivity influence relationship development in franchise partnerships. The influence of these factors, however, varies in different forms of franchise partnerships, namely individual and master franchises.

The findings are based on case studies in the international hotel industry and therefore may not be generalizable to other industry sectors.

Service firms should adopt a systematic organization‐wide approach to, and management of, relationship development in franchise partnerships. In particular, in the case of cross‐country partnerships, both franchisors and franchisees need to develop and exploit their inter‐cultural skills and adapt their business practices to the cultures of host and home countries where appropriate.

The paper exploits three main streams of research which could inform the antecedents of business‐to‐business relationships, namely power‐dependence, transaction cost theories and international business. It thus advances services marketing and more specifically international franchising literatures by offering a holistic theoretical perspective to our understanding of business‐to‐business relationship development.

Several studies have focused on the development of relationships between buyers and sellers; however, we still have a limited understanding of the interaction processes of the relationships between competitors over time. This paper aims to explore the development of relationships between competitors adopting an interaction and network approach.

This study examines nine relationships between competitors that are part of two multi-actor alliances in the pharmaceutical industry. The study builds on nine longitudinal case studies supported by 24 in-depth interviews.

The findings reveal that the development of the relationships between competitors within the alliances comprises exchange and coordination processes. The cases show that relationship development is a “never-ending process” within the alliance that includes five phases: co-existence, formation, development, dormancy and dissolution. A third party is identified as having a catalyst role in relationship development.

Supported by a comprehensive literature review on relationship development models, this study highlights the value of applying an interaction and network approach for studying relationships between competitors.