Long-term Buyer-seller Relationships Research Articles

Soft Power Effect on Long-Term Buyer-Seller Relationship: A Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach and Evidence from the Turkish Smartphone Sector

Soft Power Effect on Long-Term Buyer-Seller Relationship: A Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach and Evidence from the Turkish Smartphone Sector

When is Communication Effective for Reducing Interpersonal Conflict? The Moderating Effects of Credibility and Benevolence

Bidirectional communication on a personal level plays an important role in developing a long-term buyer-seller relationship, but the process of interpersonal communication may be conflictual. Moreover, interpersonal trust may amplify or suppress the level of conflict in the communication. The present study examines how credibility trust and benevolence trust moderate the positive impact of bidirectional communication on reducing interpersonal conflict in buyer-seller contexts. Surveying data from 251 procurement professionals revealed that benevolence weakens the negative relationship between bidirectional communication and interpersonal conflict whereas credibility trust does not moderate the relationship. The implications of the divergence roles of both benevolence and credibility are discussed.

Building Agent-Customer Relationship in the Takāful Industry: A Framework of Islamic Relationship Marketing

The term ‘relationship marketing’ has grown to become a popular subject in the marketing literature over the last three decades. The literature indicates the significance of maintaining long-term relationship with customers, especially these days. The questions that then arise are: what are the antecedents that significantly contribute to building and maintaining a long-term buyer-seller relationship, and what are the outcomes of a strong buyer-seller relationship? Discussions of relationship marketing have even gained popularity in the Asian literature since 2000; yet research conducted on the issue of Malaysian Islamic financial institutions is very scarce. The existence of a gap in the Asian literature on this topic has led the researchers to develop a suitable theoretical framework of Islamic relationship marketing for Islamic financial institutions, particularly the takāful industry. The study expects that the framework of Islamic relationship marketing will be a reference material for players in the takāful industry in strengthening their relationship with their customers. Indeed, a strong agent-customer relationship will ensure the development of the takāful industry in the future.

Building Agent-Customer Relationship in the Takā Ful Industry : A Framework of Islamic Relationship Marketing

The term ‘relationship marketing’ has grown to become a popular subject in the marketing literature since the last three decades. The literature indicates the significance of maintaining long-term relationship with customers, especially in current days. The questions then arise are: what are the antecedents that significantly contribute in building and maintaining a long-term buyer-seller relationship?; and what are the outcomes of a strong buyer-seller relationship? The discussions on relationship marketing have even gained popularity in the Asian literature since 2000s; yet research conducted on the issue of Malaysian Islamic financial institutions is very scarce. The existence of a gap in the Asian literature on this topic has led the researchers to develop a suitable theoretical framework of Islamic relationship marketing for Islamic financial institutions, particularly the Takaful industry. The study expects that the framework of Islamic relationship marketing will be a material of reference for the Takaful industry players in strengthening their relationship with their customers. Indeed, a strong agent-customer relationship will ensure the development of the Takaful industry in the future. Keywords: Relationship marketing, Islamic marketing ethics, Takaful industry, Agent Takaful

Elucidating the Ethical Sales Behavior in Electronic Commerce

Ethics profoundly impacts the formation and maintenance of long-term buyer-seller relationships. However, ethical sales practices in electronic commerce (EC) have seldom been addressed. This study analyzes the role of consumer perceptions of ethical sales behavior in developing better relationships between EC websites and consumers. This study creates an analytical model, in which the outcomes of perceived ethical sales behavior include trust, satisfaction, and word-of-mouth (WOM). Research hypotheses derived from the model are tested using structural equation modeling on responses from 548 online shoppers. Analytical results indicate that perceived ethical sales behavior not only directly impacts trust, satisfaction, and WOM, respectively, but also indirectly influences satisfaction via trust, and WOM via both trust and satisfaction. Based on the findings, managerial implications are proposed for EC websites and future research directions suggested.

Ethics in electronic commerce: An exploration of its consequences

Ethics plays an important role in the formation and maintenance of long-term buyer-seller relationship. Yet there is little research on ethics in electronic commerce (EC) contexts. The purpose of this study was to examine the consequences of consumers’ perception regarding a transaction-process based approach for measuring ethics of EC websites. This study developed a model, in which the consequences of EC ethics included perceived value, commitment, and loyalty. Research hypotheses derived from the model were tested using structural equation modeling on responses from 548 online shoppers. The results showed that EC ethics not only had a direct impact on perceived value, commitment, and loyalty, respectively, but also had indirect influences on commitment through perceived value and on loyalty through both perceived value and commitment. Based on the findings, managerial implications were proposed for EC websites and suggestions regarding future studies were also made. Key words: Commitment, electronic commerce (EC), ethics, loyalty, perceived value, website.

Buyers' perspectives of buyer–seller relationship development

Long-term buyer–seller relationships have been a focus of research for several years. The present study draws on interaction/network theory to test a model examining the interaction mechanisms and relationship characteristics of buyer–seller relationships during four progressive phases of relationship development. Data from 174 members of the Institute for Supply Management offer empirical support for the associations proposed in the model, as well as some surprising results. One of the most useful findings of the research is that the patterns of these associations vary as buyer–seller relationships progress through the four phases of relationship development. Specifically: in the awareness phase, joint problem solving increases buyer uncertainty; in the exploration phase, communication quality and joint problem solving increase relationship-specific investments; and in the expansion phase, joint problem solving increases relationship-specific investments and severe conflict resolution increases buyer uncertainty. Seller reputation moderates many of these relationships. The major conclusion of the research is that buyers and sellers should recognize that while information exchange and conflict resolution are important aspects of buyer–seller relationships, their use may not always lead to the desired relationship characteristics. Managerial implications of these findings and further research ideas are presented.

Price-setting in business-to-business markets

Although cost-plus pricing is often used in B2B markets it has the serious drawback that it ignores both customer price sensitivity and potential competitor action. Most B2B markets are oligopolies so that there is an ever-present risk of a price-war if any of the competitors engage in aggressive price-cutting. Firms should be encouraged to think of pricing as a continuous process rather than a once-off decision. This process involves several different departments, which may have rather different views on pricing priorities (for example, sales people tend to over-estimate the responsiveness of customers to price, while accountants tend to focus on the short-term cash-flow implications of pricing rather than longer-term strategy). Two aspects of pricing that are particularly important in B2B markets are bid pricing and price-setting within long-term buyer-seller relationships. Pricing raises a number of important ethical issues, notably anti-competitive pricing, price fixing, price collusion, price discrimination, predatory pricing (dumping) and price gouging.

Exploring the Relationships Among Sales Manager Goals, Ethical Behavior and Professional Commitment in the Salesforce

As the desire to forge mutually beneficial long-term buyer-seller relationships increases, the need to take actions necessary for doing so likewise increases. Sales managers have the opportunity to influence critical selling behaviors that can affect relationships. This paper examines how sales managers' drive to reach their goals may adversely impact the behavior of their salesforce by their willingness to allow unethical behavior to occur amongst their salespeople. Furthermore, it examines the impact these goals may play on their commitment to a career in sales management. Results from an analysis of sales managers indicate that difficult goals may negatively impact managers' reactions to unethical behavior amongst salespeople. Furthermore, such goals negatively impact their desire to pursue a career in sales management. Implications of the Study are offered.

The Influence of Service Recovery Evaluation on Customer Post-Complaint Behavior

Several studies have focused on the influence of service recovery efforts on customers’ post-complaint responses. However, customer outcomes consisting of responses that can lead to long-term buyer-seller relationships have not been thoroughly investigated. Using a customer sample in an emerging economy,Chile, this paper studies the relationship between service recovery evaluation (SRE) and a long-term customer post-complaint behavior (LTC-PCB) consisting of customer trust, relationship commitment, and loyalty. With regard to SRE dimensions, the study shows that compensation and employee behavior are directly related to trust and indirectly related to both commitment and loyalty. The study also shows that another dimension, promptness, is not significant for customers. In other words, customers do not give great importance to the amount of time that companies take to handle complaints as long as the complaints are resolved.

An Empirical Approach to Identifying Cross-Cultural Modifications to International Hospitality Industry Sales Training

This study uses six of Wilson's (1995) “success” variables in long-term buyer-seller relationship development to analyze whether relationship marketing concepts can be applied globally in hospitality sales training programs. It looks at the cross-cultural differences that exist between various regions of the world (i.e., North America and Asia) in the way buyer-seller relationships are perceived by hotel salespersons. This study found differences in the importance given to the “success” variables do exist across international boundaries. Recognition of the differences can provide assistance to hospitality industry marketers in designing and modifying sales training programs focused on developing long-term buyer-seller relationships.

Adverse Selection, Short-Term Contracting, and the Underprovision of On-the-Job Training

Abstract This article argues that the existence of adverse selection (worker heterogeneity) can explain the underprovision of general training by employers. High-ability workers value the option to entertain outside wage offers once their abilty becomes known to the market. Offering short-term contracts is, therefore, a way to screen high-ability types from low-ability types. A firm is not willing to train workers under short-term contracts. Hence, despite the positive returns to training, training may be underprovided in equilibrium. More generally, this article contributes to the literature that seeks to explain the puzzling phenomenon of short-term contracts governing long-term buyer-seller relationships.

The Future of the Meeting, Incentive, Convention, and Exhibition (MICE) Industry Buyer-Seller Relationship

Abstract Is the future of the buyer-seller relationship between meeting planners and hotel salespeople in the MICE industry more likely to be high tech or high touch? A series of Hotel Sales and Marketing International (HSMAI) “think tanks” could not agree on an answer to this question (Rach, n.d.). However, since the 1980s, the emphasis in business-to-business selling has been on building long-term buyer-seller relationships through the relationship/consultative selling approach (i.e., high touch) (Alessandra & Barrera, 1993; Swenson & Link, 1998). The question is whether technology, particularly the growth of the Internet, may be causing the selling environment to change from the relationship/consultative approach to a traditional, transaction oriented approach (i.e., high tech). The framework for the proposed analysis is the continuum of buyer preferences for working relationships with sellers (Anderson & Narus, 1991). What is proposed is that further research needs to be done in the area of understand...

Fading relationships in business markets: an exploratory study

This paper addresses an important but until now modestly researched question, i.e. why long-term buyer-seller relationships originally built on reciprocity and mutual trust fade away. In an exploratory study of a firm experiencing that major, long-term customers had gradually disappeared, it was found that neither the firms' sales representatives nor its management were able to understand the changes taking place due to experience-based, rigid mental models trapping their thinking and subsequent behaviours. Contrary to what is usually believed, it was observed that strong social ties between relational actors hampered rather than eased the flow of information. Theoretical and managerial implications are emphasized.