Alignment and Misalignment in Business Relationships

Managing relationship gaps: A practitioner perspective

“…A long-term relationship might suddenly enter a critical phase as the customer's needs change, or when the supplier's product portfolio and strategy change, both perhaps driven by changes in the business environment. In effect, the solution offered by the supplier becomes "misaligned" (Corsaro and Snehota, 2011), and the future of the business relationship becomes uncertain (see Tähtinen and Blois, 2011). In other words, a relationship "gap" (Leminen, 2001), "conflict" (Hadjikhani and Håkansson, 1996), or "frictional event" (Nordin, 2006) emerges.…”

“…However, in practice, the resolution of a gap situation depends on a variety of factors that must be considered and made sense of by the managers involved. Adapting to customer requirements (Corsaro and Snehota, 2011) may conflict with strategic objectives, while ending the relationship may result in the loss of an important customer. Various bondings (e.g., Ahmad and Buttle, 2001) and situational circumstances, e.g., time pressure and competition, complicate the situation further.…”

How practice breakdowns disclose existing structures and contribute to practice innovation

“…As we have argued earlier in this chapter, event-based approaches assume the existence of resources, but their role in relation to change remains underexamined. Rather, its focus is on changing perceptions of actors about change and alignment in business relationships (see also Corsaro & Snehota, 2011). Yet as Cantų et al, (2011) showed, both resource and actor dimensions are intimately related in the development of resources in business relationships.…”

“…We were especially sensitive to deviations in the way actors express their relation to resources, indicating that resources emerge as subject of concern. In addition, we followed the suggestions of Cantų, Corsaro, and Snehota (2011) to adopt a methodological sensitivity to identify shifting meanings of actors about resources over time. Resources can be products, facilities, departments, business relationships and its units including the human actors involved that all carry social, technical, and economic features (Baraldi et al, 2012;Håkansson& Waluszewski, 2002) …”

“…Halinen et al, 2013Tidström & Hagberg-Andersson, 2012). In the context of business relationships, Corsaro & Snehota (2011) found that interpretations of critical events along with the parties' perceptions of the available resources and how these resources are combined are important for alignment in business relationships. Thus, process approaches mainly focus on the human experience of change and thereby take the changing cognitions of human actors as the central unit of analyses (Abrahamsen, Henneberg, & Naudé, 2012;Henneberg, Naudé, & Mouzas (2010).…”