An empirical analysis of the stage model of Business-to-Business relationships in South Korea: a longitudinal study

ABSTRACT

In this study, we develop and evaluate a framework for investigating the relationship between firm performance and exit intentions—that is, when the termination of Business-to-Business (B2B) relationships involves both conflict and cooperation. This study adds to extant research by demonstrating the importance of temporal changes; the proposed framework highlights the change processes in B2B relationship exit intentions. At time point T, the results suggest that the long-term relationship stage is stable. At time point T + 1, we find that the final relationship stage is dynamic. We demonstrate that several structural-temporal relationships among the investigated links (i.e. conflict-cooperation, conflict-firm performance, and cooperation-firm performance) decrease.

KEYWORDS:

• Stage model
• B2B relationships
• firm performance
• exit intentions
• longitudinal study

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Myung-Soo Lee (Zicklin School of Business, The city University of New York), and Dr. Swinder Janda (Kansas State University) for their comments on a previous draft of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chang Bum Ju

Dr. Chang Bum Ju (PhD) is interested in governance and marketing strategies of public, nonprofit & business organizations, technology & sociology, and media & public policy.

Hong-Youl Ha

Dr. Hong-Youl Ha is an Associate Professor of International Trade at Dongguk University-Seoul in Korea. He obtained his PhD from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia and his articles have been published numerous times in journals such as Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, European Journal of Marketing, Service Industries Journal, International Marketing Review, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Asia Pacific Business Review, International Journal of Consumer Studies, Internet Research, among others.