آشفتگی های فناوری، بازارگرایی عرضه کننده کالا، و رضایت خریدار

The channel literature suggests that building a close relationship with key partners is one of the key strategies that channel members use to overcome the challenges of a changing environment. However, such a strategy may be ineffective when high technological turbulence exists in the buyer's market. This study focuses on the buyer's perspective in channel relationships and examines the buyer's satisfaction with outcomes resulting from engaging in relationships with a supplier. The results show that a buyer's performance is enhanced when a buyer develops a close relationship with a supplier whom it perceives to be market oriented but that a close relationship becomes detrimental to performance when technological turbulence increases. These findings suggest that managers need to be aware of the effect of technological turbulence and be alert in managing close relationships even with market-oriented suppliers.

Rapidly changing environmental conditions, with dramatic shifts in competitor actions and customer preferences, characterize contemporary marketplaces. In such a context the question arises as to how can marketing channels respond to such challenges? Importantly, help in answering this question may be found in social exchange (Thibaut and Kelley, 1959) and resource dependency theories (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). These theories offer two primary tenets that are pertinent to the above question in general and this study in particular. The first tenet is that channel members build close interfirm relationships based on relational governance manifested in various relationship quality aspects such as trust and/or commitment to enhance their performance (e.g., Noordewier et al., 1990). The second tenet is that close relationships allow firms to cope better with high environmental uncertainty by providing the partner firms with access to one another's resources (including tangible resources such as supplies of goods and intangible resources such as increased flexibility) (e.g., Jap, 1999). The growing interest in relationship marketing (RM) results in two research streams that build on these two tenets. The first stream examines relationship quality (RQ) constructs, their antecedents and consequences (see Palmatier et al., 2006 for a review). The second stream examines the contingency aspect of environmental turbulence and associations between RQ constructs and firm performance (e.g., Joshi and Campbell, 2003 and Lee and Cavusgil, 2006). This study brings these two research streams together by answering the following questions: do buyers benefit from working with a supplier whom the buyer views to be market-oriented? Does the relationship with a market-oriented supplier help the buyer perform better in conditions of high technological turbulence? How does high technological turbulence affect the performance outcome of a close relationship between the buyer and supplier? This study examines links between RM and market orientation (MO) and proposes that the supplier's MO is an antecedent to RQ. Little research investigates the effect of perceptions of the supplier's MO (the upstream partner) on relationship quality and on the performance of the buyer (the downstream partner). The study also investigates whether the benefits of close relationships vary in circumstances of technological turbulence. Consensus exists that firms should build closer relationships in conditions of market turbulence (e.g., Joshi and Campbell, 2003 and Noordewier et al., 1990) and many studies agree that market turbulence has a moderating effect on the more general MO-business performance relationship (see Appiah-Adu, 1998, Greenley, 1995 and Kumar et al., 1998). However, research on how technological turbulence affects interfirm relationships shows anomalous findings (e.g., Heide and John, 1990 and Lee and Cavusgil, 2006) and warrants deeper investigation. No research focuses specifically on the moderating effect of technological turbulence in the buyer's market on the relationship between the supplier's MO and the buyer's satisfaction with financial returns. Thus, this study focuses on the effects of technological turbulence.

The literature on channel members' interactions often suggests that an improvement of various performance outcomes for members within the channel is the appropriate benchmark. This paper proposes and finds that buyers can enhance their satisfaction with financial returns by building quality relationships and working with market-oriented suppliers. Given that interdependence is an inherent characteristic of channel relationships, a close, high quality relationship encourages partners to focus on shared goals and refrain from opportunistic behavior. This study shows that relationship quality, comprising trust and commitment, helps to explain the sentiments which underpin the behavior of channel members in exchange relationships. When a supplier is perceived as being highly market oriented, the buyer reports higher satisfaction with financial returns. The market-oriented supplier tries to offer products of higher quality than competitors and to meet the buyer's requests, and emphasizes the end customer's needs. Perceived goal congruence in satisfying end customers reduces conflict and promotes performance outcomes received from relational exchange. The buyer should therefore put in place a qualification process to screen out potential partners who are not market oriented. Whether or not committing resources to building and/or maintaining a close, high quality, relationship is worthwhile in an environment of high turbulence is a critical issue. At face value, this paper's findings point in opposite directions because the contingency effects seem to be at odds with the main effects. The contingency effects suggest that, in conditions of high technological turbulence, buyers should adhere to a loosely-formed relationship with suppliers; closeness is a dangerous thing. The main effects, by contrast, suggest that close relationships should be encouraged and will have positive performance outcomes. The results of the contingency effects, however, should not be seen as a condemnation of closeness as such but should be understood by managers as a warning of the need to guard against the so-called dark side of relationships. A close relationship beset by technological turbulence can become complacent. The homogeneity of views and resources that often characterize close relationships builds resistance to adaptation and worsens the penalties for not adapting. The existence of such dangers, however, does not by itself constitute an argument against closeness; such dangers simply point to the need for partners in a close relationship to be ever vigilant. The findings suggest neither that that close relationships should be avoided when or if technological turbulence arises, nor that managers can readily adjust the level of closeness to suit changing environmental conditions. Managers must be aware of turbulence and be alert in managing relationships, even with a market-oriented supplier, to prevent relationship complacency. The findings suggest that a market-oriented supplier is a source of resources (e.g., market knowledge) that a buyer can access in conditions of high turbulence. However, the findings also suggest that over reliance on a market-oriented supplier can lead to relationship complacency. Thinking about how to encourage the buyer's organizational learning is one way to approach this challenge. The open-mindedness and reflection that characterizes generative learning is an important form of protection against relationship complacency; nothing is taken for granted, assumptions are always reviewed. Finally, the main limitation of this study pertains to the nature of the sample. The participating firms in the research can be classified as medium-sized organizations. Since the firm size reflects an amount of resources (or buffer) organizations have, medium-sized firms may view issues such as dependence, trust, and commitment differently from large organizations. Two contradictory consequences may occur. One prediction is that the amount of collaboration or the size of the pie as noted by Jap (1999) may be limited for medium-sized firms since the ability to commit resources to dyadic relationships is lower for medium-sized firms than for large firms. The other contradictory prediction focuses on the importance of sharing resources. Since small firms must depend on one another for resources, cultivating strong and close relationships between small firms becomes a crucial resource for success and survival. The research proposes and shows that relationship quality promotes a higher level of satisfaction with financial returns. In particular, since market orientation is a source of competitive advantage, working with a partner who is market oriented helps the firm cope with technological uncertainty. The second limitation is that relationship quality is viewable only from the buyer's perspective. Ideally the study would use dyadic data and examine relationship quality as the sum of the two partners' view. After all, relationship quality is about the level of cohesion and closeness between partners. However, most studies of relationship quality are similar to this study in that they use only one partner's perspective. While one partner may indeed mistakenly believe that the relationship is a close one, the literature suggests that a partner usually is accurate in judging closeness in business relationships. In addition, prior studies suggest that a market-oriented supplier is able to encourage the buyer to be more market oriented. Future research could seek to measure levels of the buyer's MO and investigate how the buyer's own MO assists itself and the supplier cope better with uncertainty caused by high technological turbulence and with other types of uncertainty. Future research should investigate the interplay among partners' MO, mutual learning, and innovation in high environmental uncertainty. Potential weaknesses of moderator analysis via hierarchical regression is a third limitation (Russell and Bobko, 1992). The use of coarse Likert scales (e.g., a 1 to 5 scale) can result in the violation of the assumption of a linear relationship between the latent and observed variables (e.g., Busemeyer, and Jones, 1983) and spurious effect sizes of interaction coefficients due to information loss (Russell et al., 1991). Russell and Bobko (1992) propose the use of a continuous response scale to replace the more commonly used Likert scale. A continuous response scale reduces information loss caused by unknown systematic errors. The context of the study, that is, Thai exporters selling to Australian importers, limits generalizability and is a fourth limitation. The nature of the industry/product categories represented in the sample is a fifth limitation. Jewelry, gifts and toys, foods and food products are not notable for having a high level of technological turbulence. This final limitation is particularly salient since technological turbulence is more commonly found in industries such as telecommunications, medical equipment, transportation, and microprocessors. Nevertheless the industries in the sample yielded a range of responses on the technological turbulence scale enabling an analysis of different degrees of technological turbulence. Since high turbulence does not occur frequently in the industries in the sample, the findings should apply a fortiori to other industries.