Journal
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
Volume 38, Issue 5, Pages 886-908Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1086/660916
Keywords
-
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Scholars apply the relationship metaphor as a default conceptual lens to understand commercial interactions. Yet whereas the relationship paradigm sheds light on how the socially embedded structure of these interactions impacts their outcomes, the relationship metaphor can also obscure scholarly understanding of business buyers' experiences. Results of an interpretive study drawing on depth interviews demonstrate that buyers' colloquial use of relationship language is ubiquitous. However, buyers' narratives reveal instrumentally saturated emic meanings and felt tensions for the notion of expressive relationships with suppliers, which manifest deep conceptual friction with the constellation of etic relationship properties and constructs used by scholars to explain business interactions. Using Bauman's sociological commentary on liquid modernity, analyses indicate that framing these interactions as connections is a more theoretically congruent lens for viewing buyers' experiences. Implications for understanding buyers' desire for relational bonds and recasting ironic dark side research findings offer challenges for relationship marketing research.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available