Competing Through Relationships: Grounding Relationship Marketing in Resource-Advantage Theory

A common element of all views of relationship marketing is the "cooperate-to-competc" thesis. That is, to he an effective competitor often requires one to be art effective co-operatcr. One implication of this thesis is that not dl instances of firms co-operating with each other constitute anti-competitive collusion. TItis article argues that, although neoclassical, perfea competition theory cannot provide a theoretical foundation for relationship marketing's "co-operate-tocompete" thesis, the recently developed "resource-advantage" theory of competition can do so. Furthermore, this artide uses resourceadvantage theory to address the relationship portfoUo conundrum. Specifically, the paper argues that firms should develop a relationship portfoUo that is comprised of relationships that constitute relational