Causes of Intercompany Harmony in Business Markets

In line with the concept of long-term relationships, as opposed to discrete exchanges, gaining acceptance amongst marketing researchers (e.g. Wilson, 1995; Ganesan, 1994; and Dwyer et al., 1987), the prevalent literature has increasingly emphasised the importance of cooperation between companies. As described in Selnes (1998), the objective of long-term relationships is to establish, maintain and enhance relations with trading partners at a profit. It is a dynamic process, whose success depends on the ability of companies to provide one another with episodes of value on a continuous basis. Definable as, “...similar or complementary coordinated action taken by firms in interdependent relationships to achieve mutual outcomes or singular outcomes with reciprocation over time” (Anderson and Narus, 1990, p. 45), cooperation between companies is viewed as an important foundation to the success of long-term relationships (Eriksson and Sharma, 2003). A joint effort based on coordination of activities thus permits companies to attain outcomes of mutual value otherwise not possible, e.g. exchange efficiency (Cannon and Perreault, 1999), decreased environmental uncertainty (Buvik and Grønhaug, 2000), and management of dependencies (Stern and El-Ansary, 1992).... [Extract]