Toward an improved understanding of buyers' perspective of business-to-business relationships : results of an empirical study of business relationship value

With the increasing interest in business relationship issues, relationship value has emerged as an important aspect. What makes a business relationship valuable for the standpoint of the customer has become crucial for supplier. Alternative conceptualizations and measurement approaches of relationship value have been proposed in the literature of business-to-business marketing. However, the nature of relationship value drivers and the mechanism of value creation have not been investigated in-depth. The present paper develops measures for evaluating customer perceived relationship value based on the 'relative weighting' approach of evaluating value. The measure is tested using a sample of 97 buyers. The results of this study have considerable consequences for suppliers regarding the process of how value could be created between specific customers and suppliers.