The Concept Of Satisfaction in Industrial Markets: A Contextual Perspective and a Case Study from the Software Industry

The starting point for this study was the obvious " mis-match " between the dominating, consumer marketing-oriented way of approaching customer satisfaction on the one hand and our current understanding of industrial buyer–seller relationships and networks on the other. The purpose of this paper is to present a relational and contextual perspective on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction in industrial markets. To illustrate the usefulness of the perspective, this paper presents a case study on the emergence of dissatisfaction in a buyer– 374 seller relationship within its network context in the software industry. On the basis of the three-level framework highlighted in this paper, i.e., the inner context of a buyer–seller relationship , the connected network of a buyer–seller relationship, and the outer context of the connected network, it is argued that it is possible to develop a richer understanding of the emergence of satisfaction in industrial markets. ©2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved