Triadic embeddedness,sources of relational rents,and interfirm performance

Interorganizational research has largely ignored how dyadic relationships are embedded in a wider network context. Responding to this research gap, we study how triadic embeddedness – cooperating firms structurally and mutually embedded in a network of triads – affects the sources of relational rents and interfirm performance. Using a unique combination of interfirm network- and survey data, we find that triadic embeddedness affects two sources of relational rents – relationship learning and trust-based governance. Learning and trust-based governance, in turn, increase two indicators of interfirm performance – cost reductions and end-product enhancements. The study contributes to a broader understanding of the relational view by showing that triadic embeddedness has direct positive effects on the sources of relational rents and indirect positive effects on interfirm performance.     

Relational key account management: Building key account management effectiveness through structural reformations and relationship management skills

Literature has widely recognised the importance of key account management (KAM) in building long-term customer relationships. Although KAM grounds significantly on the relationship marketing theory, most empirical studies focus on the financial impact a KAM programme can produce. Hence, only normative work can advise practitioners on the implications from adopting a relational approach in managing their business with customers who can help the supplier realise a broader set of strategic objectives. Drawing from 304 cases of different suppliers, this article seeks to start filling this gap in the literature and offer empirical evidence regarding the structural and relational implications from a KAM programme. In summary, the findings suggest that adopting a relational perspective through the development of key account management orientation (KAMO) will result in certain, necessary, structural reformation while allowing for specific relational skills to develop. Consequently, supplier's performance also improves. Moreover, this chain of effects remains strong independently of resources available to the supplier, suggesting that KAM can be a significant basis for developing a competitive advantage irrespectively of the supplier's size.     

Tensions and ties in social media networks: Towards a model of understanding business relationship development and business performance enhancement through the use of LinkedIn

The era of social media networks has created significant opportunities for business relationship development yet there exists a paucity of research in this area. To address this, this paper identifies four key tensions within the current literature: relational versus transactional exchanges, emergent versus strategic social media network development, the pace of social media network formation versus the development of trust, and the notions of sharing and reciprocity versus competitive advantage. This study draws on the principles of netnography, incorporating data from 554 LinkedIn group interactions and 12 interviews with professionals in one global industry to provide insight into business relationship development stemming from one social media network. Significant contributions to theoretical and practical knowledge are made through the recognition of tensions in the literature, the application of the notion of Granovetter's ties to a contemporary context and the novel use of netnography. Furthermore, the resultant model conceptualises the use of social media networking in building networks and relationships which lead to new business and enhance business performance.     

When do formal control and trust matter? A context-based analysis of the effects on marketing channel relationships in China

Formal control and trust are two typical governance mechanisms employed to safeguard business transactions. Yet the effectiveness of each mechanism for firm relationship outcomes remains unclear. Some relevant literature suggests that formal control and trust simultaneously can help secure transactions, whereas other research argues the two control mechanisms can substitute for each other. This study applies social embeddedness theory and differentiates strong tie from weak tie relationships. In so doing, it reveals the role of strong versus weak social ties in leading to parallel conclusions about the relationship between formal control and trust and their effects on relationship outcomes. On the basis of empirical tests in a Chinese marketing channels context, this study finds that the joint effects of formal control and trust on governing transactions depends on the relational tie that the focal partners share. Specifically, formal control and trust complement each other only in weak tie relations. On the basis of this new perspective, the authors offer theoretical and managerial implications for managing interfirm governance mechanisms in transitional economies such as China.     

Achieving relational governance effectiveness: An examination of B2B management practices in Taiwan

This study examines the antecedents of relational governance effectiveness in a country context where the prevalence of Confucian values is expected to create a culturally ingrained preference for relational governance. We also explore whether different management practices are better predictors of relational governance effectiveness under different collaborative inter-firm relationship configurations. Results from an analysis of 182 alliance relationships in Taiwan, a dynamic newly developed economy, reveal that, generally, demonstrating trustworthiness, establishing just and fair procedures, and building effective platforms for connectivity are management practices that are good predictors of relational governance effectiveness. The multi-group analysis provided more nuanced insights. The findings suggest that different inter-firm relationship configurations require different subsets of management practices. Building effective platforms for connectivity is a strong predictor of relational governance effectiveness in equity-based alliances with foreign partners. In equity-based alliances with domestic partners, establishing fair and just procedures is emphasized. In contractual alliances with foreign partners, ensuring contractual clarity and building effective platforms for connectivity are found to be facilitators of relational governance effectiveness. Last, contractual alliances with domestic partners seem to rely on a portfolio of management practices encompassing demonstrating trustworthiness, establishing just and fair procedures, and building effective platforms for connectivity.     

Drivers and outcomes of relationship quality with professional service firms: An SME owner-manager perspective

Strong relationships are important, particularly for business partners dealing with business-to-business (B2B) professional service providers, as the quality of the relationship can serve as a proxy for evaluating the service delivery. Grounded in the RM paradigm, this study focused on this unique inter-firm business exchange between professional service firms (PSFs) and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to investigate the drivers and outcomes of relationship quality (RQ). Specifically, we utilized a mixed-methods approach to understand (i) the key dimensions of RQ and its drivers, (ii) the mechanism through which RQ affects relational outcomes (i.e. loyalty and willingness-to-pay premium price), and (iii) the moderating role of relationship duration and perceived risk among these relationships in a B2B professional service context. The results from a survey of 324 SME CEOs and/or owner-managers confirmed the importance of relationship value in mediating the effects of RQ and its outcomes, particularly in long-term relationships and under high-risk situations. The authors discuss the implications of the findings for theory and practice in the PSF context, and acknowledge the research limitations.     

Managing supplier-retailer relationships: From institutional and task environment perspectives

This study develops an integrated model of managing channel relationships that involves task and institutional environment perspectives. Using survey data from automobile dealers in China, the authors provide empirical evidence to demonstrate the utility of the legitimacy-based institutional environment perspective in clarifying channel relationship issues, which have been considered mostly only from an economic efficiency-based task environment approach. As the institutional environment perspective's factors, imposition asymmetry and bypassing have indirect impacts on trust in supplier and the level of conflict in a channel relationship. As the task environment standpoint's factors, explicit contracts and supplier's transaction-specific investments (TSIs) are posited to have direct effects on trust in supplier and the level of conflict, however, the hypothesized relationship between supplier's TSIs and the level of conflict is not supported. The results also indicate both building a retailer's trust in its supplier and lowering the level of conflict lead to improved relationship performance.     

Diverging expectations in buyer-seller relationships: Institutional contexts and relationship norms

Many firms assume that outsourcing partnerships may allow them to strengthen their overall competitiveness. Lured by its intuitive appeal, several enter into such partnerships, only to realize that they represent a marginal rather than a magical solution to their quest for increasing market performance. An important reason for this is the diverging beliefs and expectations held by both parties in the buyer-seller dyad. The purpose of this contribution is to develop a framework for understanding the divergences in expectations and relationship norms in cross-cultural business relationships among SMEs. We discuss four relational expectations derived from the B2B literature on relational norms for addressing these divergences: Quality, frequency and scope of communication, role specifications and coordination of work nature of planning horizons, and trustworthiness and link these to relationship performance. We explore the proposed impact of diverging relationship norms on relationship expectations using data from an ongoing field study of Danish buyers and Chinese suppliers. We link these diverging expectations to the business practices of Danish buyers and Chinese and their institutional contexts. In the concluding part of the paper, we discuss our findings and outline implications for management and academia.     

租金、力量和绩效——全球价值链背景下对竞争优势的思考

本文以“租金”、“力量”和“绩效”为核心构建概念框架来考察全球价值链中的行动者的竞争优势问题。行动者的竞争优势可以通过多种租金来源而获得,但最终体现为对市场力量和领导力量的掌握,这是由全球价值链的治理特征所决定的。不仅如此,对竞争优势的绩效衡量也应是多样化的．包括经济租金、控制权、在位权和社会就业等,这些绩效目标在一定程度上存在替代关系。     

Investigating guanxi dimensions and relationship outcomes: Insights from Sino-Anglo business relationships

This study aims to develop and test a concept for improving Anglo-Chinese business relationships. By piecing together and incorporating both Chinese and western relationship constructs into a cohesive framework and testing this on a sample of Taiwanese importers, the study conceptually and empirically advances our understanding of the discipline further. Specifically, three facets of guanxi, namely ganqing (an affective element), renqing (reciprocation and favor), and xinren (personal trust) are conceptualized to determine cooperation and coordination, which in turn lead to improved performance. Based on a sample of 208 buyers (surveying perceptions of their relationships with Anglo suppliers), we provide empirical support for our concept and reveal that ganqing, renqing and xinren are crucial for fostering the development of such Sino-Anglo relationships. By providing an international flavor in terms of the constructs outlined and the importer-exporter context, the study provides fresh insights to help broaden our horizon further and understand more about relationships in an international context. Several implications are extracted from the study which a) western marketers importantly need to practice as they grapple to enter Chinese markets and nurture business relations, b) Chinese buyers can consider when managing their supplier portfolios and c) academics can use to help measure important relational constructs and undertaking research in a Chinese context.     

Selecting Influential Business-to-Business Customers in New Product Development: Relational Embeddedness and Knowledge Heterogeneity Considerations

This study examines how the most influential business‐to‐business (B2B) customers, both existing and potential, involved in providing input to a new product development (NPD) project influence new product advantage. As the relational literature suggests, involving customers who have had close and embedded relationships with a firm's new product organization, such as a firm's largest customers, and customers who have been involved in past collaborative activities, should lead to the development of superior products. To the contrary, the innovation literature suggests that a firm may become too close to its large, embedded customers resulting in less innovation and in lower performing products. Also, the relationship between the heterogeneity of the knowledge of the most influential customers and new product advantage is examined. A contingency perspective is hypothesized such that the degree of product newness sought in the project moderates the effects of both relational embeddedness and knowledge heterogeneity on new product advantage. Empirical findings from a sample of 137 NPD projects support this contingency view. For projects seeking to develop incremental products, where the product being developed is an extension or an enhancement to an existing product, new product advantage tended to be higher in projects using embedded or homogeneous customers. For incremental projects, projects using less‐embedded or heterogeneous customers tended to have lower product performance. For projects following a highly innovative product strategy, new product advantage tended to be higher in projects that involved heterogeneous customers. These heterogeneous customers provided NPD projects with a diversity of perspectives, competencies, and experiences that fostered significant product innovations. The study contributes to the literature by empirically testing relational and innovation theories in NPD projects and by providing evidence on the importance of relational embeddedness and knowledge heterogeneity in selecting influential customers in NPD projects.     

Effective implementation of relationship orientation in new product launches

The critical role of relationships in business performance is widely recognized in the business marketing literature. However, to date, the prevailing new product launch research has concentrated on firms' general customer and competitor focus on predicting launch performance, and mainly applied a product centered or marketing mix perspective on considering effective strategic and tactical launch activities. Consequently, there is only scant knowledge on the relevance of a relational perspective when launching new products. The study contributes to this gap by examining the impact of firms' relationship orientation on launch performance and the key activities through which it is transformed into performance in the new product launch context. A set of hypotheses is developed and tested with data collected from 109 new product launches in pharmaceutical companies. The results show that sales force management and relationship leveraging mediate relationship orientation's impact on launch performance through complexly intertwined relationships. From a theoretical perspective, this study highlights the role of the relational perspective in new product launch and fosters our understanding on how relationship-focused culture is effectively implemented in practice. From a managerial perspective, the results offer insights on how firms can effectively enhance the successful commercialization of new products through relationship-oriented sales and marketing activities.     

The significance of trust and renqing in the long-term orientation of Chinese business-to-business relationships

While business relationships with China are receiving increased attention in both practitioner and academic discourse, very little empirical work however, has been undertaken to isolate and examine measures that focus on business-to-business relationships, and as such, research in this area is somewhat scant. In an attempt to bridge this gap, and add to the knowledge in this emerging discipline, the research aims to develop a conceptual framework to explore the relationship between trust and the long-term orientation in Chinese business-to-business market relationships. Based on a survey with Hong Kong companies that have a buyer-seller relationship with Chinese companies, the empirical findings indicate the mediating role and significance of ‘renqing’ for enhancing trust and contributing towards the long-term stability in relational exchange. The results highlight several implications for practicing managers to consider when aiming to establish and develop relationships in a Chinese business-to-business context.     

Classifying relationships across cultures as successful and problematic: Theoretical perspectives and managerial implications

There is increasing interest in the theoretical and practical challenges that managers face in having to deal with the multiple dualities inherent in managing a portfolio of different business relationships. A number of relationship portfolio models have been developed which use a wide range of criteria for categorizing relationships. The research reported here takes a different approach by identifying the key process and/or outcome elements which managers use to distinguish between successful and problematic relationships, and also offering a comparison of the managers' perceptions across three different countries. The aim is to contribute to the development of more robust management thinking and action. Managers in the United Kingdom (UK), France and Finland were found to think about relationships in terms of both process and outcome variables. Whilst the outcome variables used to discriminate between successful and problematic relationships vary slightly across countries, it was found that they all used the process variables of trust and problem resolution.     

Mindful management of relationships during periods of crises: A model of trust,doubt and relational adjustments

This paper identifies practices of business-to-business relationship management that lead to building resilience during crisis. Business relationships play a significant role when firms face turbulence and disruption. Crises create resource limitations that businesses need to manage by the rapid formation of new relationships to access resources and build adequate capabilities. Mindfully managing such relationships requires a combination of trust, doubt and control mechanisms to enable exchange while safeguarding against relational vulnerabilities. Drawing on data from 33 firms operating within highly turbulent and uncertain environments, and crisis management literature, we apply the concept of mindfulness and introduce a model of mindful management of relationships as a process that combines the cognitive and behavioural capabilities of trusting, doubting, verifying, and adjusting relational exposure. This process enables a rapid acquisition of resources and building capabilities while enabling businesses dealing with issues before relational failure manifests. The mindful process supports ongoing and highly interactive relationships that adjust to changing circumstances fostering collaboration to deal with crises. Results encourage managers to rapidly develop relationships and trust new partners, whilst practicing suspicious thinking, enacting continuous interaction, empowering experienced boundary personnel, enabling frequent informal communication, and supporting the development of diverse social bonds.     

组织间关系:价值界面与关系租金的获取

价值界面与关系租金概念的提出大大地拓展了获取企业内生性成长中各种资源的空间。本文通过价值界面、关系租金的模块化生产范式和关系型交易范式的分析,指出了价值界面与关系租金对于帕累托边界外推、埃奇沃思方盒改进的经济学意义,并进一步得出了价值界面构成与关系租金获取的四维模型,为网络创新提供了积极的研究视角。     

Pharmaceutical marketing through the customer portfolio: Institutional influence and adaptation

This paper discusses the dilemma of managing marketing in institutionalized business contexts. On the basis of a study of pharmaceutical marketing practices it is argued that business aspirations are dependent on understanding institutional influence and adaptation mechanisms on the customer-portfolio level. As relationships are perceived as such mechanisms, understanding network dynamics, institutional co-evolution and actor cognitions are key managerial issues. Furthermore, it is suggested that institutional discontinuities leverage institutional entrepreneurship to a critical extent.     

Managing academic R&D as a business at K.U. Leuven: context, structure and process

In this paper, we elaborate on how academic R&D can be managed as a business. Based on the case of K.U. Leuven Research and Development, it is shown how an academic institution can develop the context, structure and processes conducive to managing academic R&D as a business. It is argued that universities that intend to take advantage of the economic opportunities of their R&D programmes, should leverage their innovation potential through appropriate strategies, organizational structures and management processes that allow them to manage part of their R&D portfolio as a business without hampering though the fundamental academic values and activities of research and teaching. This balancing act has been the responsibility of K.U. Leuven Research and Development for the last 28 years. It is the subject of the case study reported in this paper.     

Relationships in the purchasing of business to business professional services: The role of personal relationships

There has been a shift from transactional to relational exchange and relationship marketing both in the business to business and professional services contexts. This paper seeks to explore the manner in which personal relationships affect the process and outcomes of purchasing of professional business services. Specifically, it focuses on the role of the professional service providers as boundary spanners in the formation of personal relationships. These personal relationships constitute the underlying basis of long-term relationships between the purchasing and provider organizations in such complex service settings. The findings of this study demonstrate that the manner in which the boundary spanners cultivate relationships support the concept of relationship specific tasks. It extends this conception by use of the data to outline the chronological process over time Understanding the roles, function, and ultimately importance, of these relationships facilitates the identification and development of appropriate strategies to manage these relationships.     

Enhancing performance in emerging-market-supplier/MNE-buyer relationships: An examination of the interplay between virtual and relational governance

Despite the emerging role of information technology (IT)-enabled interactions between exchange partners, few studies simultaneously examine IT-enabled governance (virtual governance) and relational governance. Drawing on the relational and IT-enabled governance literatures, this study develops and tests a contingent view of the interplay between virtual and relational governance in emerging-market-supplier/MNE-buyer relationships. The findings from a survey of 240 Taiwanese contracting suppliers show that the interaction between virtual and relational governance is negatively related to relationship performance. In addition, the negative interaction is stronger when the institutional distance is higher and the environment is changing rapidly. The results indicate the need for emerging-market suppliers to be aware of different uses of virtual and relational governance strategies according to differences in institutional environments and how the environment is changing.