Relationship Marketing Moderating Effect on Value Chain of Horticulture Produce: An Intermediaries’ Perspective

Transformation of Malaysia horticulture industry had detected transition from supply chain to value chain perspective as well as emerging of new type of intermediaries called the packers. However no major changes of marketing activity at farm level and stringent quality requirements at entry level impose by hypermarket, small scale production, coupled with the lack of integration across the value chain and limited compliance to global food safety are highlighted as the challenges in this industry. Intermediation might contribute to the chain deficiency process and actors. Nevertheless, relationship marketing approach had emphasized people as the main dimension on marketing research which may reveal the intangible aspect of the challenges. Therefore this paper proposed the conceptual framework to investigate the moderating effect of relationship marketing towards intermediaries’ roles and functions that contribute to smallholder business performance as well as the firm performance.