Relationships are now recognized as the sine qua non of business-to-business marketing. However, while acknowledging the importance of relationships is crucial for both academic researchers and managers alike, it is also important to be aware that relationships are not homogeneous (Ford et al., 2003 and Wilson, 2000) and can be burdensome (Håkansson & Snehota, 1998) as well as beneficial (Anderson et al., 1994, Holmlund and Törnroos, 1997 and Morgan and Hunt, 1999). The nature, antecedents and effects of relational phenomena in business-to-business marketing continue to receive attention (Johnston & Hausman, 2006) and there have been a significant number of studies investigating the benefits of maintaining relationships for a company both on the demand side (e.g. Ganesan, 1994, Morgan and Hunt, 1994 and Palmatier et al., 2007) and on the supply side (e.g. Cannon & Homburg, 2001). These studies have motivated business practitioners and scholars to give priority to the management of inter-organizational relationships.
The growing popularization of relational phenomena is stimulated not only by the potential for acquiring relational profits for the company but also because business relationships are extremely complex and, consequently, difficult to study and manage (Ford, 1997, Håkansson et al., 2009 and Möller and Halinen, 1999). Indeed, benefiting from business relationships is never automatic, because there are many factors determining relationship development (Dwyer et al., 1987, Ford, 1980 and Håkansson, 1982). If having relationships with other firms is often unconscious for managers (Håkansson et al., 2009), it may be that many companies are simply stuck in business relationships where the profit–loss balance is questionable (Vilgon and Hertz, 2003, Walter et al., 2006 and Zolkiewski and Turnbull, 2002). Reinartz, Thomas, and Kumar (2005) suggest that to recognize profits fully, relationship depth should be treated as one of most important success indicators. We follow this idea by focusing on deep relationships which we perceive as those relationships where both buyers and sellers perceive each other as key suppliers/key customers (Ulaga and Eggert, 2006 and Yli-Renko et al., 2001).
Corresponding with other authors (Cannon and Perreault, 1999, Hibbard et al., 2001, Holmlund and Strandvik, 2005, Saren and Tzokas, 1998 and Smith and Higgins, 2000) we argue that knowledge about exchange relationships is too unilateral in terms of too much focus being placed upon positive aspects of these relationships We follow the call by Hibbard et al. (2001, p. 30) that “…a more nuanced understanding of marketing relationships is needed” and focus on negative aspects of deep buyer–seller relationships.
Previous studies of negative aspects of inter-firm relationships have tended to refer to partners' opportunism (Das & Rahman, 2010), inter-organizational conflicts (Duarte & Davies, 2003), exit barriers (Lam, Shankar, Erramilli, & Murthy, 2004) and relationship ending (Tähtinen & Halinen, 2002). Our study is complementary to these streams of research; it explores the negative aspects of deep buyer–seller relationships from the buyers' perspective.1 Additionally, because most of the conceptualizations and empirical studies of buyer–seller relationships were derived in the context of Western economies (Palmatier et al., 2006, Palmatier et al., 2007 and Palmer, 1996), we argue that there is also a contextual gap in the existing theory. By conducting the study in the context of the Polish post-communist economy, we contribute to understanding of business relationships in a different context. The main objective of the paper is to explore the negative consequences of being involved in deep supplier relationships in an Eastern European context.
The structure of the paper is as follows. Firstly, the literature review is presented. This is followed by a description of the research context, Poland, and the research design is then elaborated. Following this, the research findings are presented and, finally, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
