The measurement and evaluation of mutual dependence in specific dyadic business relationships

Abstract

While the research of dyadic business relationships is often dedicated to measuring and evaluating the dependence between actors as a unidirectional phenomenon, it is sometimes referred to as a bi‐directional issue of importance in the management of a firm’s business relationships. A unidirectional measurement and evaluation of the dependence in a specific dyadic business relationship is not always sufficient to understand the existing dependence between two actors and instead a bi‐directional approach may be required. Furthermore, there is a lack of a formalised and structured procedure in order to measure and evaluate the mutual dependence in such a relationship. Therefore, this article introduces a dependence application of the perceptual bi‐directionality‐method, i.e. the PBD‐method, in order to measure and evaluate the mutual dependence in dyadic business relationships.