Searching for Relationship Value in Business Markets: Are We Missing Something?

Economic value has always been the main consideration in decisions regarding alternative courses of action in management. The relationship perspective that became popular in service and business marketing research and practice involves the application of the value concept to business relationships. Recent research in marketing on the value of relationships has been concerned with identifying the various dimensions of relationships content that can, in principle, give origin to costs or benefits for the parties involved. The way in which parties in a business relationship perceive and interpret value and how their perceptions affect their behaviors have not been at the center of this research. We will argue in this paper that perceptions impact parties' behaviors and the way business relationships develop, and report findings of a longitudinal study of how buyers and suppliers perceive and interpret value of business relationships. We then revisit the concept of value and formulate three propositions regarding the meaning of value in the context of supplier–customer relationships.