Relational Exchange Norms in Marketing: A Critical Review of                 Macneil’s Contribution

Ivens, Björn Sven; Blois, Keith

doi:10.1177/1470593104045603

Cited by 88 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…This is important because of the extensive body of research that has used a subset of Macneil ' s 3 -5 norms to distinguish between exchange types. 1,2,6 The marketing and management research drawing on Macneil, however, has focused on relationalism as a step taken to improve customers ' performance, not theory building and surprisingly, not on contracts or the duration of the living contracts that are central to Macneil ' s theory. 7 Like most relational research, this study is founded on Macneil 3 -5 and on the later work of Kaufmann and Dant.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time and the salience of Macneil's relational norms

Fink

Hatten²,

James³

2010

J Target Meas Anal Mark

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time and the salience of Macneil's relational norms

Fink

Hatten²,

James³

2010

J Target Meas Anal Mark

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Researchers have proposed two approaches for incorporating contracts into this research agenda: Blois (2002) and Ivens and Blois (2004) have investigated the commonalities and extensions to the concept of relationship through Macneil's theory of relational contract, focusing on contracts in use (Macneil and Campbell, 2001). Mouzas and Ford (2012) and Mouzas and Blois (2013) argue that a contract can be a meta-resource, which can enable business relationships, for instance as framework or umbrella agreements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contracts, relationships and innovation in business-to-business exchanges

Möhring

Finch

2015

Journal of Business &Amp; Industrial Marketing

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Structured Abstract:Purpose This paper contrasts two approaches to the study of contracts in business and industrial marketing: First, as a legal document in shaping at the outset exchanges and interactions, for instance in projects; and Second, as relational norms in becoming integrated into a business relationship through interactions, for instance as a resource. Approach The paper draws on cross-case comparison of three projects as actors develop an engineering service for optimising the maintenance of large-scale capital equipment by analysing data acquired from user records and in real time from sensors. Comparison is by coding interview and observational data as micro-sequences of interactions among actors. Findings Preparing contracts allows a project to commence and is an early form of interaction, intensifying new relationships, or cutting into and recasting established ones. Relational norms augment and can supersede the early focus on the contract, so incorporating incremental innovation and absorbing some uncertainties. Limitations The research approach benefits from detailed comparison and captures some variety across its three cases, but our discussion is limited to theoretical generalization. Practical Implications Our analysis and discussion highlights and focuses on when different approaches to understanding contracting are more apparent across durable business relationships. Transitions from a contractual document to a view of relational norms are subtle, vulnerable and not always made successfully. Originality This paper's originality is in it comparison of overlapping approaches to understanding businesses' uses of contacts in business and industrial marketing, of contract and relational norms. It develops a valuable research proposition, in the transition from a mainly contractual to a mainly relational uses of contracts, so identifying contract as a particular business resource, to be deployed and embedded.

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“…As reported by Ivens and Blois, 48 98 of the 100 papers they reviewed that explored the effects of Macneil ' s norms on other variables had drawn on Kaufmann and Dant ' s work. In addition, although Ivens and Blois 48 and Blois and Ivens 49,50 raised some issues about the validity of the Kaufmann ' s scales, their research suffers from methodological and analytical shortcomings. Their use of students in classes studying relationship marketing raises concerns regarding demand characteristics and external validity.…”

Section: Environmental Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 99%

An exploratory study of factors associated with relational exchange choices of small-, medium- and large-sized customers

Fink

James²,

Hatten³

2009

J Target Meas Anal Mark

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This paper investigates factors (exchange performance outcomes, perceptions of technological uncertainty and resource availability uncertainty) that are associated with customer choices to engage in relational exchanges with suppliers of process control equipment, and how these factors differ for small-, medium-and large-sized customers in the paper industry. The study involves a survey of 372 paper mills that investigates how these factors differ across differently sized customers. The results indicate that the variables associated with relational exchange choices are different for small-, medium-and large-sized customers, and suggest that marketing managers should develop alternative sales and marketing strategies and product and service offerings to effectively create relational exchanges with different segments of customers.

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Relational Exchange Norms in Marketing: A Critical Review of Macneil’s Contribution

Cited by 88 publications

References 68 publications

Time and the salience of Macneil's relational norms

Time and the salience of Macneil's relational norms

Contracts, relationships and innovation in business-to-business exchanges

An exploratory study of factors associated with relational exchange choices of small-, medium- and large-sized customers

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