Importer perspectives on international exchange relationships

Performance implications of distributor effectiveness, trust, and culture in import channels of distribution

“…Bello & Gilliland, 1997), identified from multiple databases, including Kompass, Hoovers Online, and Dun & Bradstreet's Million Dollar Database. Our focus was on the import-distributor's view of channel relationships, as this perspective remains under-researched (Frazier, 1999;Lye & Hamilton, 2001). Distributors were contacted by telephone to identify an appropriate key informant responsible for managing the company's relationship with foreign suppliers.…”

“…In his review of distribution channels literature, Frazier (1999) cites several areas that are deserving of researchers' attention, specifically, allocation of channel functions (job tasks that must be performed within the distribution channel), the role of contracts governing manufacturer-distributor relationships, performance appraisal, and channel management issues from a distributor's perspective. Despite the apparent need to better understand channel management from the perspective of the distributor, extant research, particularly international channels research, remains skewed in favor of the exporter/manufacturer perspective (Frazier, 1999;Lye & Hamilton, 2001;Overby & Servais, 2005). In response to the calls from previous authors, as highlighted above, the present research undertakes an investigation of channel management issues from a distributor's point of view.…”

Internationalisation for Survival: The Case of New Ventures

“…In the case of importers, international sourcing offers opportunities to compare different goods and prices so that the best choice can be selected (Lye and Hamilton 2001). An importer will have advantages in terms of higher availability of offers to make comparisons, so a new manufacturing venture will have a higher likelihood of survival than a non-importer counterpart (Wagner 2012).…”

Pricing to manage export channel relationships

“…Our second contribution resides in a disaggregated measurement approach of export pricing that enables us to uncover which specific price manipulations 4 are used to deal with internal competition. We also highlight the prominent role of the foreign distributor in the export pricing-export performance relationship (Saleh, Ali, & Julian, 2014, Lye & Hamilton, 2001), when we posit the following: a supplier's price manipulations aimed at mitigating the internal competition will fully unfold their impact on export performance only through the adequate role performance of the overseas intermediary.…”

“…2 We also refer to importers as resellers, intermediaries, or distributors, 3 We refer to distributor-level competition as internal competition to contrast it with external (market-level) competition provide the importer with superior benefits and keep the working relationship fruitful and lively (Hallén, Johanson, & Seyed-Mohamed, 1991). Some authors therefore speak of a customer relationship between the exporter and the importer (Lye & Hamilton, 2001;Solberg & Nes, 2002). Consequently, the exporter may use its pricing policy to motivate the support for their business relationship (Argouslidis & Indounas, 2010;Banerjee, Mark, Dutta, & Ray, 2012;Cavusgil, 1996;Rosenbloom, 1990;Samiee, 1987).…”