The Relationship between Mutual TSI and Interfirm Contracts: The Moderating Effect of Strong Ties

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This study examines the influence that tie strength has on contractual relationships between exchange parties with specific investments and also explores the role of network intensity in contractual relationships between buyers and suppliers. We hypothesize that the relationship between transaction-specific investments (TSIs) and contracts is moderated by network intensity.

Methodology: An empirical test is carried out by analyzing buyer–supplier relationships of manufacturing companies. The construct measures were based on those obtained from prior research, and the reliability and validity were established using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The overall measurement model was then assessed with structural equation modeling using AMOS.

Findings: We focus primarily on contract variables as a governance mechanism that can be affected by the strength of ties among firms and the results of our empirical study indicate that supplier TSIs improve the use of informal contracts while the use of formal contracts undermines the effect on supplier TSIs. In addition, we found that firms with weak ties with their partners in the network are more likely to use both formal and informal contracts than those with strong ties.

Contribution: Our study has several contributions. First, our research improves the understanding of the relationship between TSIs and the choice of contracts as a governance mechanism, especially for mutual TSIs. Second, our research improves our understanding of the network strength in the context of business-to-business relationships extending the understanding of the relationship intensity among firms in a network. Third, we focused on the effects of network intensity on contractual relationships.     

One-to-One and One-to-Many Business Relationship Marketing: Toward a Theoretical Framework

ABSTRACT

Purpose. This work addresses mixed findings in relationship marketing literature regarding the importance of micro-level (interpersonal) relationships on firm outcome.

Methodology/Approach: The article leverages impression formation theory to advance a framework to understand one-to-one and one-to-many marketing relationships to better predict firm outcome.

Findings: The authors suggest that 5 framework moderators—the type and consistency of the encounters, relationship age, purchase frequency, relationship interruptions, and two customer side characteristics (i.e., need to evaluate [NTE] and need for cognitive closure [NFCC]”)—can qualify the relationship building process and impact the effectiveness of interpersonal and/or group relationships on firm outcome.

Practical Implications: The framework suggests that (1) highly consistent sales team behaviors reduce the risk of losing business in case of a sales team member leaving; (2) low frequency purchases are better suited for one-to-many selling relationships; (3) temporarily suspending relationships by individual salespeople is more harmful than suspending relationships by sales teams; (4) involving the customer in the acquisition process facilitates team selling; and (5) a positive first impression is more important for high (vs. low) NFCC and high NTE customers.

Originality/Value. The theoretical framework (1) distinguishes between individual-to-individual and individual-to-group relationships, (2) suggests a distinction between micro-level individual-to-individual and individual-to-group relationships and macro-level individual-to-firm relationships, (3) analyzes the impact of micro-level relationships under the influence of context-related and customer-related factors, and (4) provides managerially relevant guidelines for strategic sales planning.     

Impact of Traditional Chinese Culture on Business-to-Business Relationship Marketing and Service Firm Performance

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This work addresses the mixed findings in relationship marketing studies regarding the importance of traditional culture-level (i.e., interpersonal) relationships on service firm outcomes.

Methodology/approach: This article leverages customer relationship marketing (CRM) theory to advance a framework for understanding the causal relationship between the Chinese cultural worldview and relationship marketing in order to better predict firm performance.

Findings: The author suggests that five major Chinese cultural characteristics—iren-qing, wa-pao, mianzi, chaxu-geju, and collectivism—can qualify the business-to-business (B-to-B) relationship building process and impact the effectiveness of interpersonal and/or group relationships on service firm outcomes.

Research implications: The study’s framework suggests that Chinese cultural characteristics, universal concepts manifest in the activities of Chinese society and organizations, have a positive effect on customer relationship marketing. Chinese culture characteristics can be used to generate excellent relationships with customers and thus create a consumer preference for certain companies and drive service marketing repurchase.

Originality/value/contribution: This study’s theoretical framework (a) distinguishes between Chinese cultural characteristic and relationship marketing relationships; (b) suggests that Chinese cultural characteristics and customer relationship marketing have a positive and substantial effect on service firm performance and that Chinese cultural characteristics are related to customer relationship marketing in their effect on service firm performance; and (c) provides managerially relevant guidelines for strategic sales planning.     

Relationship Quality—Relationship Value and Power Balance in Business Relationships: Descriptives and Propositions

Purpose: The objective of this study is to develop understanding of the interplay between the perceptions of power balance, relationship value, and relationship quality between retail distributors and their suppliers.

Methodology: The authors applied a phenomenological approach in both qualitative and quantitative data collections and analyses. Key informants in 27 of the dominant retail distributors within 5 Norwegian industries and 50 of their most important suppliers were interviewed.

Findings: The power balance seems to favor the retail distributors. Retail distributors and suppliers tell of somewhat different characteristics pertaining to “best” and “worst” relationships relating to economic-, capability-, and integration-based values as perceived between retail distributors and their suppliers.

Research limitations/implications: The empirical findings indicate the complexity in assessing relationship quality and show a rich basis for further research, thereby contributing to knowledge and insights in characterizing relationship quality when power is asymmetrically distributed between distributors and their suppliers. However, personal interviews may reveal answers at rational, cognitive, and even emotional levels, thus complicating subjective analysis.

Practical implications: The results of the study are important for both researchers and practitioners on both sides of retail distributor–supplier relationships.

Originality/value: This study advances the work on what characterizes relationship quality in asymmetric power business relationships.     

The Power of Innovativeness in Manufacturer–Retailer Relationships

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Retailers often challenge manufacturers through aggressive store brand policies and severe listing constraints. This study investigates manufacturer innovativeness as a managerial lever to shift the power balance between manufacturers and retailers.

Methodology/approach: Using data from 277 senior managers of Swiss and German consumer goods manufacturers and analyzing these data with structural equation modelling, the authors test hypotheses about the impact of manufacturer innovativeness on manufacturer–retailer relationship characteristics (i.e., retailer dependency, store brand aggressiveness, and listing constraints).

Findings: The study demonstrates that manufacturer innovativeness enhances retailer dependency, which in turn positively affects overall manufacturer performance. This relationship can be explained further: By increasing retailer dependency, manufacturers suppress retailers’ store brand aggressiveness and attenuate retailers’ listing constraints. Store brand aggressiveness affects overall manufacturer performance through listing constraints.

Research implications: Identifying levers such as innovativeness that assist manufacturers in fostering their power over retailers provides a new mode for understanding how manufacturers can influence the balance of power between manufacturers and retailers. The study provides support for the approach/inhibition theory of power on the inter-organizational level. Organizations with increased power are assumed to have approach-related tendencies and act in goal-consistent manner, whereas organizations with reduced power are assumed to develop the tendency to pursue inhibition-related actions, e.g., attending to threats. Furthermore, this study identifies channel relationship characteristics such as retailer dependency as a mediating path between manufacturer innovativeness and performance.

Practical implications: Managers need to strengthen the firm’s innovative capacity to enhance the performance of their companies. By developing the capability to provide radical innovations, manufacturers are able to enhance their performance not only directly but also indirectly by strengthening the manufacturer’s position with regard to retailers. This study underscores the relevance of innovativeness for strengthening the manufacturer’s position in its relationship with retailers that avoids problems with aggressive store brands and constrained listing conditions.

Originality/value/contribution: This study proposes manufacturer innovativeness as a managerial lever to shift the power balance between manufacturers and retailers.     

Developing a New Theory of Frontline Manufacturer-Retailer Relationships for Consumer Packaged Goods

Purpose: Frontline employees from consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers, and the retailers’ employees who they interact with, play a crucial role in the in-store execution of product promotions and in ensuring that products are available for shoppers. This article investigates the development of interpersonal relationships between these frontline actors at the store-level of analysis and how these relationships influence in-store processes. We consider the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for sales force recruiting and sales management in the CPG retail channel.

Methodology/approach: Frontline relationships and in-store execution remain relatively under researched fields in the sales management and retail literatures. Given the lack of a well-established theoretical framework, we conducted a qualitative study in the grounded theory research tradition. We interviewed frontline personnel from manufacturers and retailers, their immediate managers and headquarters personnel and other industry experts. We took a holistic approach to data collection; also gathering other types of written, photo and video data for the purpose of iterative data analysis and developing a mid-range theory of relationship development between manufacturer representatives and retailer employees, the frontline employees tasked with executing marketing and merchandising strategies in the store.

Findings: We develop a model of frontline relationship development and performance consisting of 4 distinct stages: (1) working alongside, (2) building respect, (3) cooperative relationship (helping hands), and (4) collaborative partnership. We compare our findings with existing relationship marketing and relationship management theories. We find that an alternative theoretical framework may suit the particularities of the CPG retail channel better.

Research implications: This article provides insight into a very specific but important type of business-to-business relationships in the CPG retail channel that have seen little scholarly attention. It calls for re-evaluating the relevance of existing relationship marketing and sales management paradigms in the CPG retail channel. Future research could investigate the extent to which our model is applicable in sales environments beyond the CPG retail channel.

Practical implications: The study’s findings contribute to the practice of relationship marketing and sales management in the CPG retail channel. We present a case for a different approach of managing manufacturer-retailer relationships at the store level, a more functional tactic, which seems to deliver higher relationship performance than expected under the relationship marketing paradigm prevalent in sales and retail literatures. This different approach has direct consequences for the recruitment and management of a CPG sales force.     

Analyzing Relationships Using Macneil'S and Menger'S Approach to Exchanges

Abstract

Recent developments in understanding of the concept of “relationships ”have resulted in recognition that exchanges involve a range of complexity and duration. However much current work is at a rather macro-level dealing with “the relationship ”and/or “the exchange. ”A more micro-level approach indicates both a need to disaggregate what is exchanged into its component attributes and to recognize the role of individuals in the process of creating and maintaining a relationship. This paper summarizes both Menger'S insights into the nature of exchange and Macneil'S conceptualization of the norms within which exchanges operate. Then building on this, and using Day'S concept of value equations, the nature of exchanges will be considered.     

Promotion and Prevention Contracts in Industry Level Firm to Firm Dyad

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This article aims to introduce and distinguish two features of contract design – prevention and promotion contracts – and compares their effects on opportunism within the distributor–supplier relationship. It also examines the moderating role of ex post contract enforcement strategies.     

Volatile Environments and Interfirm Governance: Does Trust Matter?

Purpose: Manufacturers in volatile environments should rely on governance mechanisms to reduce the risks inherent in those environments. However, it remains to be determined which governance mechanism a given manufacturer will develop in volatile environments in order to manage the relationship with its supplier. The principal objective of this study is to explain circumstances in which different governance mechanisms function under volatile environmental conditions.

Methodology: The empirical test was conducted with manufacturing companies in the context of manufacturer-supplier relationships. Construct measures were based on existing measures and previous research. Measurement reliability and validity were established using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and an overall measurement model was assessed with structural equation modeling using LISREL 8.54.

Findings: The results of this study showed that manufacturers should consider the level of trust they bestow on their suppliers to select an appropriate governance mechanism to deal with environmental volatility. When a manufacturer does not trust its supplier under conditions of environmental volatility, the manufacturer should consider adopting unilateral governance. If a manufacturer trusts its supplier, it should consider bilateral governance to respond in a timely manner to changes in the resource market.

Contribution: This study introduced trust to explain governance mechanisms in an uncertain environment and showed that interorganizational trust is a condition for influencing a manufacturer's propensity toward a specific governance mechanism.     

Operationalizing Trust,Reliance, and Dependence in Business Relationships: Responding to the Ongoing Naming and Cross-Level Problems

Purpose: This article is to test the proposition that the 3 conceptually related constructs of trust, reliance, and dependence are distinct from each other and to test the proposition that the quality of business relationships can be measured with a formative index incorporating trust and reliance.

Methodology/Approach: The authors' propositions are tested with a survey sample of 221 firms in the U.K. construction industry. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses are used to analyze the survey data.

Findings: The independence of the 3 focal constructs of trust, reliance, and dependence is confirmed. The formative index is found suitable for evaluating the level of relationship quality in which reliance carries more significant weight than trust.

Research Implications: The separation of the overall construct of “trust” into trust at interpersonal level and reliance at interorganizational level, as found in this study, overcomes the problem existing in past studies that researchers rarely specify at which level trust operates. The clear conceptual distinction between reliance and dependence as found in this study implies that although both operate at the organizational level, they do not have overlapping boundaries. The finding that reliance is a more important impact factor than trust in constructing the formative index supports the notions that reliance is a necessary and sufficient condition for developing sustainable business relationships, and trust is an insufficient condition to sustain an ongoing business relationship.

Practical Implications: Reliance sets the keynote of the business relationship. In contrast, trust as the interpersonal variable only acts as the facilitator to create a favorable social environment. Nevertheless, both trust and reliance have a significant and positive weight in the relationship quality index formed. This means that a business relationship with high levels of both trust and reliance is particularly resilient and stable and is the most successful and desirable one which is frequently oriented toward the long run.

Originality/Value/Contribution: The confirmation of the difference between trust and reliance makes an important contribution to the study of trust in business to business marketing by showing that what has traditionally been treated as theoverall construct of trust can and should be regarded as being made up of two separate constructs: interpersonal trust and interorganizational reliance. The difference between reliance and dependence as an additional finding makes another important contribution by providing conceptual clarity of the two constructs and confirming that there is no overlapping boundary between them. The formative index and the relative importance of its components are another important contribution of this study.     

Contractual Satisfaction: The Polish and Tanzanian Perspectives

Purpose: Interfirm satisfaction has been studied at the aggregate level, which has limited use in terms of understanding specific dimensions. Contractual satisfaction relates to the specific level of analyzing interfirm satisfaction. This study contributes towards understanding contractual satisfaction and the contextual nature of the concept. To achieve the latter, two heterogeneous emerging markets were used (Poland and Tanzania).

Methodology: The study was conducted in Poland and Tanzania, focusing on manufacturing firms. The sample included 201 Polish firms and 240 Tanzanian firms.

Findings: The major findings suggest that ex ante costs and ex post specifications have a significant positive effect on contractual satisfaction, with a stronger effect in Poland. Behavioral uncertainty has a significant moderating effect on these two constructs in Tanzania but not in Poland, whereas the moderating effect of trust is found to be significantly positive in Poland but negative in Tanzania.

Research Implications: The nature of markets and institutions has an influence on business to business relations.

Practical Implications: Contractual satisfaction is not homogeneous across markets; managers should pay attention to specific contextual factors such as institutions and the stage they are at in their transformation.

Originality: The study looks specifically at contractual satisfaction and extends the contractual governance literature by considering heterogeneous emerging markets.     

Interaction Approach and Liabilities: A Case Analysis of Start-Up Firms

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Start-up firms have to face some key challenges due to liabilities related to processes that are external to the organization, such as establishing relationships with customers, suppliers and other relevant actors. The purpose of the article is to understand how liabilities, namely newness, smallness, foreignness and outsidership, are related to each other in start-ups, and what are the main liabilities perceived/experienced by start-ups and their counterparts, using an interactive perspective.

Methodology: The article uses a case study methodology and proposes 3 cases of start-ups firms and their counterparts. Cases are built using multiple data-sources, both primary and secondary.

Findings: The article highlights the role of “heritage” left by the membership in the network. This “network heritage” means that some aspects of the network are pre-existing, in terms of previous and long lasting relationships with other actors. In this sense, the network in which the firm connects pre-exists and mitigates the existence of liabilities that come into play in the processes of interdependence with other actors. This provides a perspective of liabilities, specifically the liability of newness, as an asset in the sense that newness depends on a “short story,” without constraints of a “longer story” as that of competitors in the network. The liability of newness is an asset in terms of flexibility, customized offer and innovative content.

Originality/value/contribution: The main contribution of the article lies in taking an interactive perspective on start-ups and liabilities, analyzing the interaction processes taking place between the new venture and the surrounding network of essential actors.

Practical implications: Liabilities arise and can be overcome in the processes of interaction, which therefore can have an ambivalent role: fertile ground for the manifestation of liabilities but also the context for its overcoming/conversion of liabilities into assets. Entrepreneurs and managers should consider newness and smallness as positive attributes for other actors in the processes of interaction, as a potential generator of value. Such a perception of newness as an asset depends on two factors: the presence or absence of an organization-mother that limits the perception of newness as a liability; the sector in which the new company develops, if dynamic and innovative or still tied to traditional and consolidated processes where the experience, “history” and “heritage” of the firm are sources of legitimacy.     

An Integrated B2B Guanxi Model: A Taiwan Perspective

Abstract

Due to the uniqueness of Chinese culture, relationship marketing cannot be interpreted directly from the extant theories developed in Western society. Using qualitative research, the study constructed an integrated model of B2B gaunxi and proposed seven observations through the interviews with Taiwanese small and medium enterprises. The proposed model describes a complete process of building guanxi with five levels: evaluation of the target firm, channels for building guanxi, exchange of B2B guanxi, evaluation of guanxi quality, and evaluation of guanxi performance, which can be applied for developing business relationships in China. The use of interviewees’ real dialogs provides a “hands on/real world” view of the role of guanxi for building and maintaining business relationships, which have here-to-fore been treated in comparatively esoteric ways.     

A Scientometric Analysis of Publications in the Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing 1993–2014

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To conduct a scientometric analysis of the contents of the Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing from 1993 to 2014.

Methodology/approach: The authors use the Leximancer computer-aided text analysis program, which reliably and reproducibly identifies the main concepts embedded in the text—their frequency and patterns of co-occurrence—based on the ways words move together in the text. They also identify key concepts that differentiate among the networks of concepts occurring in each of the first four five-year periods of the Journal’s history.

Findings: There are four common underlying conceptual themes: relationships, market, study, and business. But the focal mix of concepts has changed over time, from a narrower initial focus on distribution and power and conflict, to a greater focus on firm business marketing strategy and pedagogy, to a focus on networks, the Internet and more collaborative relations, to a focus, in the most recent period, on psycho-social network concepts, such as trust and commitment.

Research implications: The results complement and provide a baseline for evaluating and comparing researcher-conducted literature reviews of business marketing and JBBM’s contributions. The methodology provides possibilities for further analysis as it can be extended to analyze the business marketing and wider marketing literature more generally and how it has evolved.

Practical implications: Leximancer provides a comprehensive, accessible summary of the content of the JBBM and demonstrates its value as a text analysis program.

Originality/value/contribution: The authors are among the first to use this novel computer text analysis program to conduct a scientometric analyses of journal content. It provides a template for conducting studies of other journals and text.     

Slotting Allowances in China: Perspectives of a Large Manufacturer Versus a Large Retailer in the China Grocery Market

ABSTRACT

Slotting allowances and contractual marketing agreements pervade the retail environment in the United States. They represent a profit center for large retailers who exercise market power and represent a cost center for large manufacturers. Many manufacturers have alleged that they are “held captive” to procure prime retail space. Despite the influx of retailers and manufacturers based in the United States, the deployment of slotting allowances in China is less prevalent but does pervade the grocery sector. The purpose of this study is therefore to explore the attitudes of large Western manufacturers and retailers toward the issue of slotting allowances in the China grocery market through a qualitative study. In-depth interviews were conducted with key decision-makers from Coca-Cola (manufacturer) and Carrefour (retail hypermarket) to critically explore their attitudes toward slotting allowances. The interviews reveal principal differences grounded in cultural norms.     

Promotion and Prevention Contracts in Distributor–Supplier Relationship Using Matched Dyadic Data

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This article aims to introduce and distinguish two features of contract design – prevention and promotion contracts – and compares their effects on opportunism within the distributor–supplier relationship. It also examines the moderating role of ex post contract enforcement strategies.

Methodology/approach: The authors test the proposed theoretical model by collecting matched data from distributors and suppliers in China. Moreover, partial least squares regression is used to analyze the data and test the hypothesis model.

Findings: The results show that a prevention contract leads the distributor to vigilantly avoid mistakes and punishments, thereby deterring him from behaving opportunistically. Alternatively, a promotion contract motivates the distributor to make an effort to attain potential long-run payoffs instead of short-term profits, subsequently restraining his opportunism. Overall, the promotion contract is more effective in curbing distributor opportunism than the prevention contract. In addition, the inhibitory effect of a prevention contract on opportunism is reinforced along with a severe contract enforcement strategy. By contrast, a promotion contract effectively mitigates opportunism with a swift contract enforcement strategy.

Originality/value/contribution: This study untangles two distinctive features of contract design – prevention-framed and promotion-framed contracts – and compares their effects on opportunism management. This study also provides a profound understanding of contract effectiveness by revealing the interaction effect between ex ante contract design and ex post contract enforcement.

Research implications: Researchers are encouraged to explore contract effectiveness from a framing perspective. In particular, ex post contract enforcement strategies should be included in research frameworks related to contract governance. Suggestions for further research on the effects of prevention and promotion contracts on different forms of opportunism are also proposed.

Practical implications: This article provides several insightful implications for managers in designing and enforcing contract in business-to-business marketing. Managers can strategically achieve control and motivation effects by consciously making framing decisions in the contract design, further curbing opportunistic behaviors. Moreover, managers can select a contract enforcement strategy in accordance with the contract type to maximize the effects of the specific contract.     

The CALM Method

Abstract

This paper addresses the need for an assessment/summative evaluation regarding the CALM (The Consignment Auction Li—quidation Marketing) Method of Mass Product Distribution. Originally developed and initiated in 1993, in response to the common need business organizations have for product liquidation outlets, this nontraditional form of distribution targets audiences contemplating the distribution of products, including manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and other entrepreneurs.

The topic of distribution is considered to be one of four primary “marketing tools” referred to as the “marketing mix.” In addition to distribution, the other three components of the marketing mix are product, price, and promotion. The mass distribution of products via consignment auction liquidation outlets may be viewed as an additional channel of distribution. However, mass consignment auction liquidation on a national basis has not been adequately assessed or evaluated. There is little published about this type of product distribution.

The effectiveness of the CALM Method utilized on a national basis and covering a 10-year time span is presented. Effectiveness was largely assessed through statistical observations of the effect of various independent variables on the dependent variable, “auction outlet profitability.” Independent variables include geographic location/region of each consignment auction outlet; population size of each consignment auction outlet's community; merchandise type; consignment term, etc. The CALM Method yields the opportunity for profitable liquidation of mass quantities of merchandise on a national basis. This assessment/summative evaluation yields the opportunity for insight regarding the method's actual effectiveness and adds to the limited amount of research found in this area of mass distribution.     

Interfirm Control of Plural Formed Marketing Channels

ABSTRACT

Borrowing multi-contract theory from the organizational economics literature (Hart 1983; Holmstrøm 1982; Lazear and Rosen 1981) I build a multilevel channel framework of network control. This framework incorporates both multi-contract theory and the traditional dyadic approach.

I also propose a dynamic perspective of the organizational control process that shifts from a dyadic pre-contractual model focused on the anticipated attributes of the bilateral relationship to a post-contractual phase focused on the interaction between dyads in a network of different contracts. It is difficult and costly to formulate an explicit contract that safeguards the principal's post-contractual interests (Ouchi 1979). Organizational learning and control based on comparative information can support such incomplete contracts.     

Trusting and Monitoring Business Partners throughout the Relationship Life Cycle

Purpose: The goal of this research is to understand the theoretical and empirical confluence of multi-dimensional trust with the role of monitoring as business partnerships unfold and evolve dynamically throughout the course of the relationship life cycle.

Methodology: A pilot study is run in which in-depth interviews are conducted with managers to glean their insights regarding the theoretical questions and to verify terminology for survey items. A large-scale survey study is then conducted to test hypotheses about the relationships among the focal constructs. The participants in both studies are real procurement professionals reporting on their primary supplier relationships. The qualitative study and the samples of real world managers enhance the external validity of this research.

Findings: In early stages of business relationships, monitoring and benevolence trust interact to positively impact business performance. Continued monitoring in later stages interact with benevolence trust to performance detriment. Conversely, monitoring and competence aspects of trust hurt business performance in earlier life stages.

Research Implications: Theoretical frameworks that include the constructs of multidimensional trust, monitoring, and relationship life cycle stages can build on the nuanced 3-dimensional contingencies established in this research. In particular, this research furthers the concepts of monitoring and the relationship life cycle.

Practical Implications: There is a time and a place to trust one's business partners, and a time and a place to verify their trustworthiness. As business partnerships are forged, monitoring and benevolence trust can be particularly fruitful.

Contribution: In this research, the authors build on the business marketing literature that has begun to delineate the benevolence and competence dimensions of trust in business relationships; they demonstrate the role that partner monitoring has in maintaining business commitments; and establish how these effects are modified over the stages of the relationship life cycle; i.e., from exploration, to build-up, maturity, and decline.     

A review of the marriage analogy in relationship marketing

This paper offers a review of the marriage analogy in relationship marketing as used by many marketing authors. Accepting a Christian view of marriage as adopted in Levitt's seminal paper, marriage is seen as a successful, public, contractual, and monogamous relationship, freely entered into by two consenting adults of different genders, which is intended to endure a lifetime. However, while parallels do exist in relationship development, the metaphor fails to deliver on issues concerning the number of parties involved in the relationship, on the attendant costs and benefits, on the willingness of the parties involved and on the “ideal” timescale of the relationship. Parallels from the full range of relationships between the sexes, both functional and dysfunctional, suggest polygamy, prostitution, stalking, rape, and seduction may be more apposite.