A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SMALL BUSINESS OWNER-MANAGERS' IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN B2B RELATIONSHIP MARKETING AND BUSINESS NETWORKING DISCOURSE IN THE UK AND CHINA

Abstract

In a small business context, the importance of relationship marketing has not attracted much academic attention. This study explores the discursive resources on which small business owner-managers draw, when making sense of business to business (B2B) relationships and networks and constructing identities in various socio-cultural contexts. Through unstructured interviews with 21 British and 22 Chinese owner-managers, we find that both British and Chinese respondents show a noticeable preference for long-term interactive relationships and portray themselves as being interpersonal skillful. Yet British owner-managers describe themselves as being relational, trustworthy, and committed mostly at interorganizational level. According to them, interpersonal relationships are merely employed as a marketing technique supporting organizational goals. In contrast, Chinese owner-managers make sense of their identity merely at interpersonal level. They shape their self-images as trustworthy "friends" on both cognitive and affective dimensions. Chinese owner-managers present themselves as being personally committed to their relationship partners and highlight the importance of being reciprocal, cooperative, flexible, empathetic, respectful of "face", and willing to compromise. Chinese owner-managers verbally attach interorganizational relationship to interpersonal relationship and thus present a more complicated image of self. Some discourses of Chinese owner-managers show similar pattern of sensemaking with British owner-managers. This echoes structural changes of economic ideology as well as legal and contractual infrastructure. The concrete findings support the utility of sensemaking and identity construction as a framework for studying relationship marketing and business networking.