Attractiveness in Buyer-Supplier Relationships: An Agenda for Empirical Research

number 011-0903 Attractiveness in Buyer-Supplier Relationships: An Agenda for Empirical Research M.Sc. (Tech.) Outi Kettunen, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, P.O. Box 1000, FI-02044 VTT, Finland, [email protected], tel. +358407601843 M.Sc. (Tech.) Anna Aminoff, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, P.O. Box 1000, FI02044 VTT, Finland, [email protected], tel. +358405917979 M.Sc. (Physics) Ketty Kortelainen, Nokia Siemens Networks, Karaportti 5, 02610 Espoo, [email protected], +358714004000 Professor Kari Tanskanen, Helsinki University of Technology, P.O. Box 5500, FI-02015 TKK, Finland, [email protected], tel. +358505508008 POMS 20th Annual Conference Orlando, Florida U.S.A. May 1 to May 4, 2009 Abstract This paper focuses on the role of attractiveness in buyer-supplier relationships. We first present a brief literature review that identifies the stream of literature that has discussed attractiveness. We start form Blau (1964) who treated the concept from the social exchange theory point of view, and then we follow the relationship management literature that deals attractiveness more from the business relationships viewpoint. While the previous research has been purely conceptual, we argue that there is a need for empirical investigation. We present a research agenda that aims to provide empirical evidence on the role of attractiveness in buyer-supplier relationships. The multiple case study involves three companies from different industries in the role of buyers and nine companies inThis paper focuses on the role of attractiveness in buyer-supplier relationships. We first present a brief literature review that identifies the stream of literature that has discussed attractiveness. We start form Blau (1964) who treated the concept from the social exchange theory point of view, and then we follow the relationship management literature that deals attractiveness more from the business relationships viewpoint. While the previous research has been purely conceptual, we argue that there is a need for empirical investigation. We present a research agenda that aims to provide empirical evidence on the role of attractiveness in buyer-supplier relationships. The multiple case study involves three companies from different industries in the role of buyers and nine companies in