Forging buyer-seller relationships for total quality management in international business: The case of the European cement industry

Most authors agree that commitment is an important building block in long-term business relationships. This study attempts to investigate how commitment develops in long-term business-to-business relationships in the context of an international quality network. Toaccomplish this objective, the relationship marketing perspective and the network perspective are integrated into a conceptual framework, describing how network constructs influence the long-term relationships indirectly through commitment. This framework was tested empirically in the context of the European cement industry with regards to a total quality management network. Our results indicate that, in particular, affective commitment and calculative commitment have a significant positive effect on the parties' willingness to invest in the relationship. The antecedents of commitment, and especially actor bonds, have an indirect influence on the willingness to invest in the relationships.