Richard Soparnot

Effects of relationship benefits and relationship proneness on relationship outcomes: a three-country comparison

Relationship marketing is not equally effective in every country; this study investigates the potential moderating effects of individualism, long-term orientation (LTO), and consumer relationship proneness (CRP) on the links of relationship benefits with relational satisfaction, trust, and relationship commitment in a retail context. Multigroup analyses of a sample of 502 graduate students from the USA, France, and China revealed that consumers significantly differ in their perceptions of relational benefits, relationship proneness, trust, relational satisfaction, and commitment. Moreover, positive relationships of relational benefits with trust, relational satisfaction, and commitment are moderated by CRP and cultural factors (individualism and LTO). Therefore, personality traits and national culture both exert important influences on consumer attitudes toward relationship benefits and retail relationships. Both factors accordingly should be taken into consideration in segmentation decisions and when developing international marketing strategies. Managerial implications are discussed.

Network ties and absorptive capacity for learning and decision-making

The decision-making literature emphasizes that social ties play an important role in high-stake decisions. However, research on small- and medium-sized enterprises has only partially covered these influences by focusing on the direct link between social ties and the effectiveness of decision-making. In this paper, we focus on absorptive capacity of decision-makers as a critical mechanism that gives social ties their potency in explaining collaborative decision-making in an inter-organizational network (ION) context. In a sample of key individuals in 13 export consortia, this study identifies the extent to which the characteristics of personal network affect individuals’ absorptive capacity. Our results suggest that weak and heterogeneous ties between key individuals in an ION are central mechanisms that influence their ability to access, assimilate, transform and utilize information. However, indirect ties do not show a positive impact on absorptive capacity, as it was hypothesized. Our findings add to the literature on the role of network ties in collaborative decision-making by making explicit a mechanism through which personal network of individuals in an ION influence their information-processing capabilities for effective decision-making. We show that decision-making in interfirm networks is not only a political process but also a learning process.