B-to-B relationships: A resource, knowledge, and capability (RKC) perspective
Department
Marketing and Professional Sales
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-1-2020
Abstract
© 2020 Elsevier Inc. The literature on the establishment and performance of business to business (B-to-B) relationships is extensive and diverse. Multiple perspectives such as the Resource-Based View, Knowledge-Based View, and more recently (Dynamic) Capability-Based View have been used by researchers to explain the existence of B-to-B relationships. While these perspectives have their own merits, they lack cohesion and paint a somewhat scattered picture of the rationale behind B-to-B relationships. This study is an attempt to bring these divergent perspectives together to offer a parsimonious logic for B-to-B relationships – a match or mismatch between what the buyers want (resource, knowledge, and capability) and what the sellers can offer (resource, knowledge, and capability). A 3 × 3 typological framework is proposed, which includes three broad types of B-to-B relationships – balanced relationships (BR), seller dominant relationships (SDR), and buyer dominant relationships (BDR). The boundary conditions and possible outcomes of the relationship types are also outlined. This study has important implications for theory and practice.
Journal Title
Industrial Marketing Management
Journal ISSN
00198501
Volume
91
First Page
92
Last Page
99
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.08.017