If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -It has been suggested that "customer responsive supply-chain management" and "agile supply-chain management" are necessary for the new competitive conditions. However, there is an enormous gap between the idealised prescription and actual practice. The aim of this paper is to examine, in some detail, the factors that can help to explain this mismatch between rhetoric and reality. Design/methodology/approach -To do so, it focuses on a "best-case" situation -the retailer Marks and Spencer and its relations with its clothing suppliers. This company has traditionally been renowned, among other things, for the sophistication of its supply-chain activities. The research reported here is based on detailed interviews with suppliers and buyers. Findings -The research reveals that the tenets of the customer responsive supply-chain management model are technically feasible. But, the study also finds that even under circumstances where there is evidence that it works well, and produces valued outcomes, it remains vulnerable to erosion because of a number of institutional factors.Research limitations/implications -The research presents a number of challenges to conventional thinking about collaborative relationships. The paper suggests the need for further work on the competing priorities between collaborative inter-organisational working on the one hand, and competing corporate strategies and ingrained routines on the other. Practical implications -Practitioners can derive many lessons from this research -most notably it identifies the nature of the barriers and forearms supply-chain innovators with details of the dynamics that can so easily thwart their best efforts. Originality/value -The paper explains the mismatch between rhetonic and reality in buyer-seller relationships.