A quantitative exploration of communication's role in determining the governance of manufacturer–retailer relationships

Abstract

Today's managers are organising and managing a portfolio of interorganizational relationships (IORs); hence, the governance of exchange relationships has gained strategic consequence. Prior interorganizational research by the authors has indicated that communication may be central to IOR governance. One test of communication's potential in this area would be to examine if communication could delineate differing IOR types. To study this, we decided to utilize a type of test–retest statistical application. We first classified manufacturer–retailer relationship structures by using Donaldson and O'Toole [J. Bus. Ind. Mark. 15 (2000) 491] original relationship strength framework (RSF) and discriminant analysis. Next, employing the same statistical technique, we classified the respondents after adding communication measures to the RSF. Results were limited. Only the inclusion of communication quality, one of the elements of communication behavior, in the RSF enhances its power to delineate relationship structures. However, we believe that it is in the ongoing management of relationships that the communication dynamic holds most promise.