Journal of Administrative and Business Studies
Details
Journal ISSN: 2414-309X
Article DOI: https://doi.org/10.20474/jabs-5.3.5
Received: 17 April 2019
Accepted: 15 May 2019
Published: 28 June 2019
Download Article (PDF)
  • Developing relationship management strategies in a network context


Hadi Rezaei Vandchali, Stephen Cahoon, Shu-Ling Chen

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyze the current Relationship Management Strategies (RMS) that firms apply to govern the whole SCN. The paper conducts a comprehensive review of Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) and SCN literature to explore how firms develop relationships with various actors with the SCN. The findings reveal that the linear perspective is not enough to truly understand the SC and emphasize that firms need to consider a network perspective to analyze their SC, which paves the way to shift from the SC towards an SCN context. By providing the main distinctions between an SCN and an SC, this paper also clarifies the actor’s characteristics of the SCN and enhances the understanding of the SCN actor. Furthermore, it identifies different RMS models that firms apply to manage their SCN, synthesizing knowledge involving the RMS and SCN. Finally, by outlining further research directions, this paper alerts researcher, for example, to investigate RMS in the network context while considering various contingency variables in their future research.