Strategic Partnerships versus Captive Buyer and Supplier Relationships

The face of customer relationship management has shifted as business partners on both sides of the relationship deploy technology to better manage relationships, streamline business processes and achieve integration. The phenomenon of captive buyer and supplier relationships grounded in substantial unilateral monetary and organizational investments in achieving business objectives contrast with strategic partnerships, which emerge through bilateral investments. The current research examines buyer/supplier relationship dyads finding that buyers’ trust has a direct effect on the occurrence of captive buyer relationships; moreover, captive buyer and supplier relationships have a direct effect on each parties’ respective perceived benefits. More importantly, each partners’ trust has a direct effect upon the occurrence of strategic partnerships, which in turn has a direct effect on perceptions of derived benefits for each.