Supplier development and the relationship life-cycle

The mainstream view holds that over time buyer-supplier relationships evolve through a number of phases. As a consequence, supplier development as a buyer-supplier relationship management practice should also be adapted to the life-cycle phase. Supplier development activities matching the buyer-supplier relationship life-cycle phase will lead to more favorable performance improvements. However, prior studies have neglected the relationship life-cycle perspective. This empirical study shows how the length of the buyer-supplier relationship can be used to improve the explanatory power of models investigating the performance outcomes of supplier development activities. The results show that supplier development is more effective in mature as opposed to initial and declining life-cycles phases. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.