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A Contingency Perspective of Communication, Conflict Resolution and Buyer Search Effort in Buyer‐Supplier Relationships
Author(s) -
Claycomb Cindy,
Frankwick Gary L.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of supply chain management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.75
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1745-493X
pISSN - 1523-2409
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-493x.2004.tb00253.x
Subject(s) - business , contingency , context (archaeology) , contingency theory , marketing , perspective (graphical) , affect (linguistics) , association (psychology) , supplier relationship management , process (computing) , survey data collection , knowledge management , supply chain management , supply chain , computer science , psychology , paleontology , philosophy , linguistics , statistics , mathematics , communication , artificial intelligence , psychotherapist , biology , operating system
SUMMARY This study investigates the moderating effects of buying context on the relationship between communication elements and the effort buyers exert while searching for new suppliers throughout a buyer‐supplier relationship development process. A mail survey of members of the Institute for Supply Management™ was conducted and the data were analyzed using moderated regression. The results suggest that company size, buyer experience, relationship duration and relationship importance affect the association between a buyer's search effort and the communication elements. Interestingly, the buying context affects the relationship between search effort and the communication elements in different ways and to a different extent in each stage of the relationship development process.