a survey on factors to create and maintain relationship between industrial suppliers and buyers in iran (a case on crane machinery and industrial equipment)

this article identifies the factors which create and maintain the long term relationship between industrial crane suppliers and their buyers. a random sample of 79 respondents of buying companies was tested by structural equation models with lisrel and pls. findings revealed that latent variables like satisfaction, trust, commitment and intention to continue relationship had goodness of fit. the manifest variables like product characteristics and trust were positively related to relationship satisfaction, supplier opportunism and conflict were negatively related to trust, relationship satisfaction is positively related to commitment and commitment is positively related to continue with a relationship. in conclusion, relationships in this market are now at the progressive stage. for final stages, it is recommended to establish commitment in the relationships so that to guarantee relationship norms and stability.