Context Of Personal Relationships Research Articles

The role of personal relationships in supply chains

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand how personal relationships influence behavior within a supply-chain context. Design/methodology/approach – This research employs a qualitative methodology that allows for a rich assessment of how buyers and suppliers of logistics services interact within the context of personal relationships (e.g. friendships), that are themselves embedded within interfirm relationships. Based on a grounded theory approach, a model is developed describing how and why personal relationships are important for supply-chain managers to consider when cultivating interfirm connections. Findings – The findings reveal how managers act/interact within the context of personal relationships, as well as the outcomes/benefits associated with the development of personal relationships. Research limitations/implications – This study uses qualitative interviews to generate theory. The generalizability of the findings will have to be empirically examined in future research. Practical implications – Managers can use the findings to understand explicitly what types of benefits personal relationships can yield. Further, this study presents to managers the specific actions that buyers and suppliers of logistics services engage in, when developing a personal relationship, in order to facilitate the generation of positive business outcomes. Originality/value – A notable weakness in the supply-chain relationship literature is the unfulfilled need for research examining interfirm relationships at a micro/individual level, rather than the traditionally adopted firm-to-firm view, in order to account for the social/relational elements of firm-level relationships. This paper addresses that gap by exploring personal relationships within supply chains.

Liturgy and Politics

The problem of politics is essentially the problem of reconciling personal relationships to public or impersonal human relationships. For we all feel a tension between the two. We begin life almost wholly within a context of personal relationships – with parents or parental substitutes who present themselves to us as individuals. It is only gradually that we discover a wider world or relationships with people who are not members of the family – that is to say, people not familiar to us. Slowly, as childhood proceeds our original personal relationships are surrounded by a rarefied and less know-able but ever-expanding ‘atmosphere’ of unfamiliar humanity. This ‘atmosphere’ of impersonal humanity can only be partially explored, and has for the most part to be taken for granted. Of course, no sharp dividing line can be drawn between those whom we know in a real, personal way and the surrounding mass of humanity which we can know only in a notional, impersonal way, but just as the familiar air of Birmingham or Bermuda gradually thins out as we go upwards, until we come to a point where we quite obviously need some artificial means for continuing to breathe there at all, so we gradually come to a point, in the exploration of our human surroundings, where we need to set up some artificial, institutional framework if we are to carry on living in that rarefied atmosphere. That is to say we need to set up a political order and to develop a political consciousness.