Mature relationships

Mature relationships: Why does relational orientation turn

into transaction orientation?

Kishore Gopalakrishna Pillaia

, Arun Sharmab,*

a

College of Business, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA b

Department of Marketing, School of Business Administration, University of Miami, P.O. Box 248147 Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA

Received 30 March 2003; received in revised form 25 May 2003; accepted 15 June 2003

Abstract

One of the fundamental assumptions of relationship marketing is that the length of the relationship increases the relational orientation of

the partners. Recently, however, researchers have suggested that the benefits of relationship marketing are not evident in a large number of

industries [e.g., Journal of Marketing 64 (2000, October) 17]. In this paper, we examine these contradictory results and, using extant research

in this area, we model the antecedents of mature relationships that lead to relational versus transactional orientation. Most buyer seller

associations follow an s-shaped curve between partners’ length of association and the relational orientation of the buyer. However, for some

buyer – seller associations, we suggest that there is an inverted u-shaped relationship between relational orientation and length of association.

We examine relational attributes and propose variables that are the antecedents of transactional orientation in mature relationships.

Implications for theory and managerial practice are highlighted.

D 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Transactions; Mature relationships; Relational orientation; Transactional orientation

1. Introduction

Transaction versus relationship has become a very im￾portant topic for research, as this special issue testifies.

Evidence from the last two decades documents significant

research efforts that produced a substantial body of literature

on, and in favor of, relationship marketing. However, recent

findings have cast doubt on some of the fundamental

assumptions of relationship marketing theory. In fact, some

research has suggested that transaction-oriented strategy

may be more profitable for firms. The issue is more

important to business-to-business marketers, as most cus￾tomers are seen as relational.

Our interest is in exploring the focus on transactional

versus relational strategies within the context of a mature

buyer – supplier interaction in a business-to-business setting.

Extant research has proposed that, initially, buyer – seller

associations are transactional in nature, followed by an

increase in relational orientation. However, in long-term or

mature relationships, some buyer – seller associations have

been found to demonstrate both relational and transactional

orientations. In this research, we explicate the factors that

affect mature buyer – seller associations’ choices of relation￾al versus transactional strategies and the environment in

which we observe an inverted u-shaped relationship be￾tween relational orientation and length of association.

It is understood that at each stage of a buyer – seller

association, both relational orientation and transaction ori￾entation exist. This paper concentrates on an initial exami￾nation of transactional orientation in mature association,

where relational orientation is expected to predominantly

exist. This examination is in the context of organization-level

buyer – seller relationships, that is, B2B transactions. Addi￾tionally, in this investigation, because of our initial attempt to

address this conundrum, we address both manufacturing

relationships and professional service relationships.

We begin the paper with a discussion of the theory of

relationship marketing and report research on the first two

stages of relationships, characterized by an initial transac￾tional and then increasingly relational orientation. We then

explicate the factors that affect the nature of mature relation￾0019-8501/$ – see front matter D 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.indmarman.2003.06.005

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-305-284-1770; fax: +1-305-284-

5326.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Gopalakrishna Pillai),

[email protected] (A. Sharma).

Industrial Marketing Management 32 (2003) 643 – 651