The buyer–seller relationship: a literature

synthesis on dynamic perspectives

Khalid Hussain
School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China and
COMSATS University Islamabad, Sahiwal Campus, Sahiwal, Pakistan
Fengjie Jing
School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
Muhammad Junaid
School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China and Department of Management Sciences,
COMSATS University Islamabad (Sahiwal Campus), Sahiwal, Pakistan
Huayu Shi
School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China, and
Usman Baig
Department of Management Sciences, Institute of Arts and Sciences, Gujranwala, Pakistan

Abstract
Purpose – Contemporary scholars contend that the buyer–seller relationship is dynamic in nature, so it grows, matures and declines over time.
However, most studies that adopt the dynamic perspective debates its conceptualization and how dynamic effects are captured. This scholarly
discourse has led to multiple dynamic perspectives and resulted in fragmented and scattered literature on the subject. This study aims to synthesize
the large body of research on dynamic perspectives in a systematic way.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper follows a systematic review approach to extract and review 192 research articles from four electronic
databases: Web of Science, EBSCOhost Business, ScienceDirect and Emerald. Based on the inclusion criteria that the articles examine time-dependent
relationship development in light of a generalizable dynamic perspective, 61 articles were selected for the final examination and reporting.
Findings – This review reveals that most research on the buyer–seller dynamic relationship follows at least one of four perspectives: the relationship
lifecycle, relationship age, relationship velocity and the asymmetric–dynamic perspective. Each perspective offers a distinct conceptualization of relationship
development and has certain advantages that enable researchers to capture information about relationships’ growth trajectory in a unique manner.
Practical implications – Firms need a set of diverse strategies for their customers, depending on the state of the relationships’ development, as
strategies that pay off at initial levels may fail at later stages. This study helps managers select an appropriate dynamic perspective that best aligns
with their customers’ stage of relationship development so they can devise customized relationship-management strategies.
Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this article is the first attempt to organize the discourse of a large body of research on
dynamic perspectives, and therefore it helps academicians and practitioners to choose the dynamic perspective that best suits their objectives and
research settings. This review documents key research areas that have been overlooked and highlights opportunities for future research.
Keywords Buyer–seller relationships, Relationship development, Relationship lifecycle, Relationship velocity, Relationship age, Dynamic relationship
Paper type Literature review

Introduction static view that provides only a snapshot of the current

customer–company relationship. Such research may
The fundamental concern of relationship-marketing scholars is undermine managers’ ability to allocate resources to maintain
the need to explain buyer–seller relationships in this turbulent mutually beneficial relationships with trade partners in the long
business environment so they can be managed better (Zhang
et al., 2016). The rapidly changing technological, social,
economic and political environment may affect how buyer–
The authors profoundly acknowledge Editor and reviewers’ valuable
seller relationships develop over time. However, most of the comments and suggestions to improve the quality and contributions of
large body of research on the buyer–seller relationship follows a earlier versions of our manuscript.
This research project is funded by National Natural Science Foundation
of China with Grant/Award Number 71572056.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0885-8624.htm Received 30 September 2018
Revised 8 January 2019
2 August 2019
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
15 November 2019
35/4 (2020) 669–684 13 February 2020
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 0885-8624] 22 February 2020
[DOI 10.1108/JBIM-09-2018-0280] Accepted 25 February 2020

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Khalid Hussain et al.
run because the objective of maintaining profitable and loyalty-
based long-term relationships is difficult to achieve without a
comprehensive understanding of the dynamic nature of buyer–
seller relationships. In this regard, contemporary scholars
contend that the customer–company relationship is dynamic in
nature, as it grows, matures and declines over time (Dwyer
et al., 1987; Zhang et al., 2016). Multiple studies report that
relationships perform differently as they lengthen (Falk et al.,
2010; Hibbard et al., 2001; Jap and Anderson, 2007), which
suggests that studying the buyer–seller relationship at a single
point in time does not capture all the key information about
relationships’ trajectory. Therefore, the literature suggests
adopting a dynamic view to deepen insights on how
relationships change over time (Lam et al., 2013).
The proponents of the dynamic perspective contend that the
dynamic aspects of a relationship are more central to predicting
future behaviors than the static elements are (Huang et al.,
2017; Hussain et al., 2019). Extant studies demonstrate that
the dynamic perspective helps to capture critical information
from the developmental trajectory that explains relationship
performance (Huang and Cheng, 2016; Palmatier et al., 2013;
Wagner, 2011). The insights gleaned from the dynamic
perspective help to protect transaction-based investments and
lead to sustainable cooperative relationships (Huang and Chiu,
2018). In addition, the dynamic perspective provides detailed
information about relationships at various levels and enables
managers to devise strategies for their relationship portfolios
(Meehan and Wright, 2013; Zhang et al., 2016).
Because of these strategic imperatives, the dynamic
perspective has received considerable attention from the
academic community. However, most studies that adopt the
dynamic perspective debate its conceptualization and how
dynamic effects are captured. For example, one school of
thought asserts that the buyer–seller relationship is an ongoing
process that develops, grows, matures and declines over time
(Dwyer et al., 1987; Eggert et al., 2006; Zhang et al., 2016) in
an inverted U-shaped growth trajectory, and that all of the
relationships at a particular stage (e.g. build-up) behave in a
similar manner and differently than relationships at other stages
(e.g. exploration or maturity). Other scholars suggest that
relationships do not switch abruptly from one stage to another
but follow an ongoing process that develops continuously,
without following a predefined set of stages (Hibbard et al.,
2001; Jap and Anderson, 2007). Palmatier et al. (2013)
introduce their own conceptualization of the buyer–seller
relationship as simultaneously containing discrete and
continuous properties that can be captured from the rate and
direction of change in the relationship’s trajectory. On the other
hand, Falk et al. (2010) advance the notion that the buyer–
seller relationship unfolds over time in a nonlinear and
asymmetric manner. Such diverse views of the
conceptualization of the dynamic perspective have generated a
diverse body of research that also remains scattered and
disorganized and documents inconsistent findings. Clearly,
research on the buyer–seller relationship remains unsettled,
making the concept difficult to grasp.
Against this backdrop, Palmatier et al. (2017) suggest
organizing the literature in a systematic way when disagreement
or debate pervades a field in the marketing discipline.
Therefore, this study synthesizes a large body of diverse and
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dispersed research on the buyer–seller dynamic relationship in
a systematic way to help scholars to take a step forward using
this article as a platform from which to develop rationales for
future research. The systematic literature review addresses four
research questions:
RQ1. How many dynamic perspectives are documented in
the relationship marketing literature?
RQ2. What are the commonalities and differences among
these perspectives?
RQ3. In which sectors/industries have these perspectives
been studied?
RQ4. What methodological approaches have been used to
capture the dynamic effects of the buyer–seller
relationship?
By addressing these research questions, our study offers
useful and timely contributions to the body of knowledge in
the realm of buyer–seller dynamic relationships. To the best
of the authors’ knowledge, this study marks the first attempt
to organize a large body of diverse and relatively widely
strewn research systematically in a single article. We
provide detailed commentary on each perspective’s
evolution, conceptualizations and applicability to particular
sectors/industries, and the nature of the dynamic effects that
it captures. We also report any criticism or disagreement with
each perspective that is documented in the literature,
highlight areas that the extant literature overlooks and
provide direction for future research. On practical grounds,
we highlight some critical factors of dynamic relationships
that mangers should consider in the formulation and
execution of effective customer-oriented strategies. In so
doing, we provide a comprehensive overview of key control
variables, methodological approaches and statistical
techniques that managers can use to investigate their firms’
relationships.
Methodology
As Tranfield et al. (2003) assert, syntheses of literature should
be conducted in a systematic, reproducible and transparent
manner that can enhance the quality of the knowledge base.
Palmatier et al. (2017) outline a six-step process for conducting
a systematic review of the literature in all marketing diciplines.
We followed this process as shown in Figure 1.
Following Palmatier et al.’s (2017) guidelines, in the first
stage, we articulate four research questions whose answers will
ensure that we achieve our objective to organize a large body of
research on dynamic perspectives.
In the second step, we establish our study’s protocol, which
includes articulation of inclusion and exclusion criteria and
selection of keywords. We outline the basic elements of
inclusion criteria as the prerequisite for any study. As a
preliminary inclusion criterion, the studies that examine the
buyer–seller dynamic relationship should follow an integrative
approach by incorporating in the studies the buyer/seller’s
controllable factors and the development of the relationship
over time. Here, studies that conceptualize the time-dependent
relationship development process or investigate the changing
 The buyer–seller relationship
Khalid Hussain et al.
Figure 1 Systematic review process adopted from Palmatier et al.
(2017)
Step 1 Topic Formulation Articulated four research questions
(Listed in the introduction)
Established the study’s protocol, formulated
inclusion and exclusion criteria, identified a set
Step 2 Study Design of keywords e.g. dynamic relationship,
relationship development, relationship
lifecycle, relationship stages, relationship age,
buyer-seller relationship
Searched the relevant literature from Web of
Step 3 Sampling Science, EBSCOhost Business, ScienceDirect,
and Emerald. This process yielded 192 research
articles.
Scrutinized the literature based on inclusion and
Step 4 Data Collection exclusion criteria. This process resulted in 61
articles that were used for further analysis.
Step 5 Data Analysis The selected articles were analyzed using a
combination of descriptive and thematic analyses.
Step 6 Data Reporting Presented the findings and offered direction for
future research.
nature of the buyer–seller relationship development over time
are likely candidates for inclusion. The dynamic perspective
that a study proposes or follows to examine relationship
development should also be generalizable to any kind of
relationship (e.g. B2B or B2C; large suppliers and small
buyers) and should be applicable to other relational constructs
or buyer/seller’s controllable factors. For example, Dwyer et al.
(1987) propose a relationship–lifecycle perspective (RLP) that
states that the buyer–seller relationship is dynamic in nature, as
it develops, grows, matures and declines over time. This
perspective is applicable to all kinds of relationships in the
manufacturing and service sectors and helps to capture
dynamic effects with any set of relational or buyer/seller’s
controllable factors. Therefore, we select articles that follow a
particular perspective in examining the dynamic relationship
and are generalizable to a wider population and exclude articles
that investigate the dynamic relationship but do not follow a
particular perspective and examine only time-dependent
changes in the effects of certain variables on certain constructs.
For instance, Masserini et al. (2017) investigate the impact of
service quality’s reliabilty dimension on customer satsifaction at
three points in time, but their study does not develop a dynamic
framework that prospective research can follow to examine the
dynamic buyer–seller relationship with other sets of variables.
In contrast, Dwyer et al. (1987) offer a dynamic persective that
many studies have adopted over the years to investigate
relationship development using a variety of relational
constructs in a diverse range of industries. Therefore, we
exclude those articles that do not follow or develop a
generalizable dynamic perspective in examining buyer–seller
relationship development over time. The framework of such
studies cannot be applied as a theoretical underpining for
further research because of their limited generalizability and
their applicability to all kinds of relationships. After describing
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the inclusion/exclussion criteria, we identify a set of keywords
with which to search the literature: dynamic relationship,
relationship development, relationship lifecycle, relationship stages,
relationship velocity, relationship age, relationship dynamics,
asymmetric relationship, buyer–seller and customer-company.
In the third stage, we search for potentially relevant studies
with the help of the identified keywords. We combine two or
more keywords with Boolean search operators (e.g.
“dynamic relationship” AND “buyer” OR “seller”) to refine
the search and give us articles that focus on the dynamic
aspects of the customer–company relationship. This search
process yields 192 articles from four electronic databases:
Web of Science (87 articles), EBSCOhost Business (33
articles), ScienceDirect (46 articles) and Emerald (26
articles). As some of the articles are available on more than
one database, we screen out 56 duplicate articles, leaving us
with 136 articles. Then, we screen out 32 articles that do not
examine some kind of dynamic relationship, leaving us with
104 articles.
In the fourth step of the systematic review process, we
determine whether each study meets the predefined inclusion
criteria. For this purpose, we follow stringent inclusion and
exclusion criteria to select articles for further review. We
summarize each article’s relevance to the dynamic aspects of
customer–company relationships and extract information
about a particular perspective based on the article’s purpose, its
focus on the dynamic aspect, its methodology and its findings.
This initial review reveals that most of the studies discuss the
dynamic nature of buyer–seller relationships in light of a
particular perspective. For example, many studies follow
Dwyer et al.’s (1987) conceptualization of relationship
development and examine the buyer–seller relationship based
on lifecycle stages. Other studies (Jap, 2001; Jap and Anderson,
2007) criticize the discrete nature of the lifecycle stages and
present their own conceptualizations of the relationship–age
perspective (RAP). Palmatier et al. (2013) introduce the
relationship–velocity perspective (RVP) by combining the RLP
and RAP. Unlike these three perspectives, Falk et al. (2010)
promulgate an asymmetric–dynamic perspective (ADP) that
suggests that relationships unfold over time in a nonlinear and
asymmetric manner. Therefore, we select studies for further
review that follow any of these four perspectives in investigating
the buyer–seller dynamic relationship and exclude the studies
that examine the buyer–seller dynamic relationship but do not
follow a particular perspective because of their limited
generalizability. For example, Homburg et al. (2006),
Masserini et al. (2017) and Slotegraaf and Inman (2004)
examine dynamic relationships, but their findings are limited to
certain relational or sellers’ controllable factors. One can apply
any of the perspectives (lifecycle, age, velocity and asymmetric-
dynamic) to analyzing buyer–seller dynamic relationships with
any set of relational and sellers’ controllable factors, so the
wider application and adaptability of these four dynamic
perspectives leads us to include for further review studies that
examine the buyer–seller relationship in light of these dynamic
perspectives.
After the initial screening, we are left with 104 articles,
which we then scrutinize based on our inclusion criteria.
We select 61 articles that meet the inclusion criteria and
exclude 43 articles from further review. These include 58
 The buyer–seller relationship
Khalid Hussain et al.
journal articles and 3 conference papers. While the journal
articles are distributed among 28 journals, 41 per cent of
the articles were published in three mainstream journals:
Industrial Marketing Management (17.2 per cent), Journal of
Business and Industrial Marketing (15.5 per cent) and
Journal of Marketing (8.6 per cent). Table I lists the
journals that published at least 2 of the 61 articles selected
for review.
In the data analysis and reporting steps of the systematic
review process, the 61 articles are analyzed and the results are
reported in an organized manner. We use a combination of
descriptive and thematic analyses to extract and report key
insights on the buyer–seller dynamic perspectives. The
descriptive analysis of the reviewed articles gives us a detailed
overview of the evolution of dynamic relationships, the
contexts and types of studies, methodological approaches and
the key relational variables used to examine dynamic
relationships. Thematic analysis helps us to divide a large
body of research into four distinct perspectives that provide
different conceptualizations of buyer–seller relationship
development; disentangle and assign each article to a
particular perspective based on the article’s purpose, method
and findings; report any disagreement among the various
perspectives; and reveal inconsistencies in findings. As a
result, we are able to provide a detailed commentary on each
perspective’s evolution, conceptualizations and applicability
to a particular sector or industry, and the nature of the
dynamic effects that each perspective captures. We also
highlight areas that the extant literature overlooks and offer
directions for future research.
Table I Distribution of articles among different journals
S. no. Journal No. of articles
1 Industrial Marketing Management
2 Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing
3 Journal of Marketing
4 Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
5 Journal of Service Research
6 Journal of Business Research
7 Journal of Business to Business Marketing
8 European Journal of Marketing
9 Journal of Operations Management
10 Others
11 Conference papers
Total
Figure 2 Overview of the literature
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Volume 35 · Number 4 · 2020 · 669–684
Findings
Dynamic perspectives
Dwyer et al.’s (1987) view that the buyer–seller relationship is
an ongoing process that transpires over time led the
relationship marketing literature to move in a new direction.
However, the research on dynamic relationships diverges on a
theoretical basis to divide the dynamic aspect of relationships
into four perspectives: RLP, RAP, RVP and ADP. These four
dynamic perspectives are discussed in detail in the next
section.
Figure 2 provides an overview of the literature on dynamic
perspectives. The figure shows that the RLP receives more
attention in the literature, while the ADP is largely ignored.
Most of the research examines buyer–seller relationships in the
business-to-business (B2B) sector. The figure also shows that
the dynamic perspectives receive increasing attention in recent
years.
The relationship–lifecycle perspective.
The notion that the buyer–seller relationship develops,
grows, matures and declines over time lays the foundation
of the RLP. In their pioneering work, Dwyer et al. (1987)
state that the customer–company relationship is dynamic
in nature and that it goes through five developmental
phases:
1 awareness;
2 exploration;
3 expansion;
4 commitment; and
5 dissolution.
In the awareness phase, one party recognizes another player’s
potential to engage in an exchange relationship. This phase
includes no material transactions. The second stage, the
exploration phase, involves trial purchases, cost–benefit
10
analyses and a detailed compatibility evaluation by exchange
9
partners (Huang and Chiu, 2018; Kusari et al., 2013). Dwyer
5
et al. (1987) divide this phase into five sub-processes: attraction,
3
communication and bargaining, development and exercise of power,
3
norm development and expectation development. However, the
3
2
relationship may proceed to the advanced stage without
2 experiencing all of the five sub-processes when the benefits of
2 the relationship outweigh the costs of maintaining it. Increased
19 interdependence can also persuade exchange partners to
3 expand their relationship (Hansen et al., 2013; Vanpoucke
61 et al., 2014). The third phase, the expansion or build-up stage,
is based on the trust and satisfaction engendered in the
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Khalid Hussain et al.
exploration stage and it enhances exchange partners’ ability to
take risks. The fourth and most advanced phase of the buyer–
seller relationship is the commitment or maturity stage.
According to Dwyer et al. (1987), commitment stems from
increased confidence, trust and satisfaction between exchange
partners. At this stage, the interdependence between the
partners reaches the level at which it precludes relationships
with other potential exchange partners because of high
switching costs and sunk costs (Lee and Johnsen, 2012;
Zineldin, 2002). The last phase is the dissolution phase, which
may be initiated unilaterally by either partner.
The RLP indicates that relationship development follows an
inverted U-shaped growth trajectory such that the relationship
grows in the exploration and expansion phases, reaches its peak
level at the commitment stage and diminishes in the dissolution
phase. The research on the RLP captures the performance of a
relationship dyad at a certain stage (e.g. commitment/
maturity). For example, Huang and Chiu (2018) measure how
relationship control affects the collaborative performance of
relationship dyads at the exploration, expansion, commitment
and dissolution stages. Over the years, RLP gains the status of
lifecycle theory (Harmeling et al., 2015) and has been used as
theoretical underpinning in a large number of studies (Huang
and Chiu, 2018; Wagner, 2011; Zhang et al., 2016) because
adopting the RLP offers several advantages. It helps researchers
to capture dynamic effects at a certain level of the relationship
trajectory with cross-sectional data. Here, a researcher can
combine all of the relationships that are in a particular
developmental stage at a single point in time. The RLP also
offers researchers the ability to compare relationships at
different stages of their development. For example, one can
disentangle properties of relationships at the expansion and
commitment levels and make decisions based on each stage.
The RLP is also equally applicable to service and
manufacturing sectors, which can be examined in longitudinal,
cross-sectional and case studies. The RLP also has several
limitations. For instance, most of the studies that use this
perspective capture the relationship at discrete stage(s) while
overlooking the critical information that lies between two
discrete stages. In addition, most of the studies that use this
perspective use respondents’ self-reported relationship stages,
which carries the risk of misperception and error. Only recently,
Zhang et al. (2016) overcome this problem by identifying the
lifecycle stages with the help of longitudinal panel data and the
position of a relationship dyad using the key relationship
markers of customer commitment, dependence, trust and
relational norms.
Although Dwyer et al.’s (1987) typology of RLP phases is
widely acknowledged, some studies adopt other
categorizations. For example, Johnson and Selnes (2004)
introduce four lifecycle states for buyer–seller relationships that
are analogous to those of personal relationships. Their study
argues that buyer–seller relationships develop from strangers to
acquaintances, from acquaintances to friends and, finally, from
friends to partners and that the relationships may terminate at
any stage. Although Johnson and Selnes (2004) use a new
typology for lifecycle stages, their insights on the development
of customer–company relationship do not differ significantly
from earlier conceptualizations. Zhang et al. (2016) present
another characterization of lifecycle states based on four
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relationship variables: trust, commitment, customer
dependence and relational norms. Based on these four
variables, their analysis of 552 B2B relationships reveals
four relationship lifecycle states: transactional, transitional,
communal and damaged. The transactional state is similar to
Dwyer et al.’s (1987) awareness stage and Johnson and Selnes’s
(2004) acquaintance states – that is, the state from where the
exchange relationship takes off. The transitional state is the
most volatile state, as relationships move to the communal or
transactional states quickly. In addition, if the buyer–seller
relationship encounters integrity problems, it may move
backward to the damaged state. The communal state, the most
stable state of the relationship lifecycle, resembles Johnson and
Selnes’s (2004) partner state and the commitment or maturity
states of Dwyer et al. (1987). However, unlike Dwyer et al.’s
dissolution phase, Zhang et al. (2016) assert that the
relationship may not dissolve but persist in a damaged state
when the relationship partners are highly interdependent. They
also argue that the relationship may recover from the damaged
state if a recovery strategy is implemented.
The relationship-dissolution state is the lifecycle phase that
Dwyer et al. (1987) left unexplained, asserting that
relationships may terminate at any of several phases. Zhang
et al. (2016) corroborate this notion by arguing that
relationships go through a damaged state before dissolving. In
this regard, Marcos and Prior (2017) provide a complete
picture of relationship decline as having three stages,
unawareness, divergence and degeneration. The decline
process starts with unawareness or ignorance of the exchange
partner’s problems because one or both parties cease
meaningful communications and lack the ability to cope with
changing circumstances. When this situation persists for a
significant period of time, the second stage of relationship
decline, divergence, is engendered. The divergence state
encompasses the gradual withdrawal of exchange partners,
which leads to lack of trust, combative behaviors and negative
views. These negative attitudes finally result in relationship
dissolution when, in the degeneration stage, reconciliation
becomes impossible and the dyad parts ways to find alternative
exchange partners.
The relationship–age perspective
The RAP is a variation of RLP which uses lifecycle theory as a
theoretical underpinning but offers a different perspective. As
RLP states, the buyer–seller relationship follows an inverted U-
shaped trajectory and goes through the developmental phases
of awareness, exploration, expansion, commitment and
decline. In contrast, Hibbard et al. (2001) demonstrate
empirically that the key relationship indicators of commitment,
mutual dependence and shared values follow a linear, declining
trend as the relationship ages. Jap and Anderson (2007) argue
that the maturity state is not the pinnacle of relationship
development, that the boundaries between some relationship
phases are blurred and that some relational indicators follow a
different pattern as the relationship ages. For example, they
find that the maturity phase is inferior to the build-up phase as
goal congruence and norms are at their highest levels during the
expansion phase. In the same vein, Autry and Golicic (2010)
reveal that the supplier–buyer relationship follows a nonlinear
relational path that disrupts and rebuilds occasionally, although
 The buyer–seller relationship
Khalid Hussain et al.
the relationship keeps going if partners continuously engage in
corrective actions. These arguments underpin the usefulness of
RAP in comprehending relational dynamics.
The RAP contends that relationship development is a
continuous process and that the relationship moves forward on
a growth trajectory as it ages, without following a
predetermined set of development stages (Huang and
Wilkinson, 2013; Jap and Anderson, 2007; Palmatier et al.,
2013). Therefore, relationships do not switch from one discrete
stage to another but are constructed and reconstructed
continuously depending on the events and interactions that
occur over time (Autry and Golicic, 2010; Huang and
Wilkinson, 2013). Unlike RLP, from this perspective, all
relationships develop at a similar pace such that all ten-year-old
relationships reach the same level on a linear growth trajectory
at the same age (Palmatier et al., 2013). However, the critics of
this perspective note that some relationships may reach
maturity in a short time, while others take years just to achieve
the build-up phase (Eggert et al., 2006). Vanpoucke et al.
(2014) compare the lifecycle stages of the long-established
relationships of six buyer–seller dyads and show that some
relationships move from the exploration stage to the expansion
stage in three years while others take more than ten years for the
same shift. Despite such criticism, the prime advantage of the
RAP is its ability to estimate dynamic effects freely without
prior assumptions about certain developmental stages. This
perspective enables researchers to examine the dynamics of any
relationship dyad that follows a unique growth trajectory (linear
or nonlinear); captures dynamic effects by simply controlling
for the length of the relationship; and is suitable for use in
manufacturing and service sectors alike.
The relationship–velocity perspective
The RVP combines RLP and RAP to offer a deeper and clearer
view of relational dynamics. The lifecycle and age perspectives
do not capture the complete information from the growth
curve, as RLP captures the relationship’s performance at a
certain stage on a growth trajectory (e.g. exploration, expansion
or maturity), and RAP sees the relationship’s development as a
continuous process and overlooks critical details that can be
available at a particular phase of relationship. To overcome
these shortcomings, Palmatier et al. (2013) introduces the
concept of relationship–velocity to capture dynamic aspects of
relational constructs. Grounded in the theory of relationship
dynamics, RVP measures the rate and direction of change in
relational constructs (Harmeling et al., 2015; Huang and
Cheng, 2016; Hussain et al., 2019). Palmatier et al. (2013) state
that the RVP captures continuous (like RAP), heterogeneous
and cyclical developmental rates (like RLP) by using static and
dynamic components from the growth trajectory. They also
expect that velocity should be positive during the relationship’s
development phases (e.g. exploration, expansion and maturity)
and should be negative during the relationship’s decline phase.
Palmatier et al. (2013) are the first to introduce the concept
of commitment velocity (rate and direction of change in
commitment) and examine its determinants and outcomes.
Then, Klein et al. (2017) and S  ahin et al. (2016) use
commitment velocity in their models to examine dynamic
relationships, and Huang and Cheng (2016) and Huang et al.
(2017) extend the concept of velocity to customer-company
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identification (CCI) and customer satisfaction (CS). They
introduce and define CCI velocity as “the rate and direction of
change in CCI” and define CS velocity as the “rate and direction
of change in CS” (p. 735). Recently, Hussain et al. (2019)
conceptualize emotional attachment (EA) velocity as the “rate
and direction of change in EA”. The extant research on RVP
posits that the dynamic aspect of relationships is more critical
than their static aspect in predicting the relationships’
performance and relationship partners’ future behaviors. For
example, Palmatier et al. (2013) demonstrate that commitment
velocity (dynamic) affects sales performance more strongly
than the level of commitment (static) does. Similarly, Huang
et al. (2017) and Huang and Cheng (2016) find that the impact
of corporate social responsibility and service quality on CCI
velocity is stronger than is its impact on the level of CCI. Lam
et al. (2013) document the dynamic aspect of consumer-brand
identification (CBI) as the CBI growth rate and examine the
difference among the effects of perceived quality, consumer-
brand congruity and innate innovativeness on CBI’s initial level
and CBI’s growth rate. However, the RVP receives more
support from the academic community because of its distinct
characterization and generalizability to other relational
constructs.
The key insight of RVP is the notion that dynamic effects are
more useful than static effects are in explaining performance
and relational outcomes (Huang et al., 2017; Huang and
Cheng, 2016; Palmatier et al., 2013). However, studies report
divergent findings, as Huang and Cheng (2016) find that the
CS level significantly impacts customer loyalty, whereas CS
velocity yields insignificant results. In contrast, Palmatier et al.
(2013) report a significant impact of commitment velocity on
sales performance and insignificant results for commitment
level. Other than these inconsistent results, no extant study
investigates the rate of change in relational constructs from one
developmental stage (e.g. exploration) to another (e.g.
expansion). In this regard, Palmatier et al. (2013) anticipate
that velocity would show a positive but slow rate of change in
the exploration stage, increase during the expansion stage,
slowdown in the maturity stage and, finally, would turn
negative during the decline phase. This area remains open for
research that can validate the tenet using empirical evidence.
The RVP has several advantages over other dynamic
perspectives. Primarily, it overcomes the limitations of the
RLP and RAP by capturing discrete and continuous effects
from the growth trajectory. Regardless of the nature of the
growth trajectory (linear or inverted U-shaped), the RVP
captures the rate and direction of change in relational
indicators that determine the pace of relationship
development in a particular direction, thereby empowering
marketing managers to devise appropriate strategies. The
RVP provides insights into B2B and business-to-customer
(B2C) types of relationships in the manufacturing and service
sectors.
The asymmetric–dynamic relationship perspective
The typology of the asymmetric relationship is used in a variety
of relational contexts. The term commonly appears in studies
in which an asymmetric relationship is attributed to the power
distance between larger suppliers and smaller buyers (or large
corporate buyers and small vendors) (Gruber et al., 2010;
 The buyer–seller relationship
Khalid Hussain et al.
Lee and Johnsen, 2012). On another spectrum, Slevitch and
Oh (2010) and Matzler et al. (2004) investigate the asymmetric
relationship between CS and attribute-level performance by
following expectancy-disconfirmation theory (Oliver, 1980)
and Kano’s model (Kano, 1984). However, these studies do
not consider time-dependent change, so they do not meet the
requirements for inclusion in our study.
Because the scope of our study is limited to dynamic
relationship management, we include studies that adopt an
integrative approach to addressing time-based relational
asymmetries while also investigating the nonlinear and dynamic
aspects of buyer–seller relationships. In this area, Falk et al.
(2010) provide empirical evidence that customer–company
relationships unfold over time in a nonlinear manner and
propose a dynamic perspective in relational asymmetries. The
ADP assumes that customer–company relationships do not
behave in a linear manner and rejects the assumption that a
certain increase in seller’s controllable attributes can yield a
particular change in customers’ attitude in a proposed direction
(Chen, 2015). According to this perspective, the negative
impact of sellers’ controllable factors could be greater than the
positive effect of the same attribute on customers’ behavior
(Kuo et al., 2018). In addition, the sellers’ controllable
attributes influence new customers’ behavior more strongly
than they do the behavior of established customers, suggesting
a simultaneous execution of the asymmetric and dynamic
aspects of a relationship and emphasizing the role of
asymmetric properties in dynamic relationships. Falk et al.
(2010) categorize ADP into positive and negative asymmetries.
Their empirical evidence suggests that negative asymmetries
arise from factors that cause diminishing returns over time,
whereas positive asymmetries are outcomes of attributes whose
positive impact on customer behavior increases as the length of
the buyer–seller relationship increases.
The ADP combines prospect theory, delight theory and age
of relationship to simultaneously capture dynamic effects and
negative/positive asymmetries, which enables ADP to offer
several advantages. It simultaneously captures relational
asymmetries and time-dependent shifts in the buyer–seller
relationship. Researchers can capture both dynamic and
asymmetric effects using cross-sectional data and a nonlinear
structural equation modeling technique. This perspective helps
practitioners to estimate the ability of sellers’ controllable
factors to generate positive or negative outcomes over the span
of the relationship. Despite such advantages, this perspective
receives scant attention from the academic community; we find
only one article on this perspective, the pioneering empirical
work of Falk et al. (2010). Therefore, in addition to our search
from selected databases, we look for articles on Web of Science
that cite Falk et al. (2010) and find 41 articles (published before
May 2018). However, the review of these articles reveals that
none adopts the ADP. Although the academic community
appears to ignore this perspective, the ADP is an important part
of understanding the dynamic properties of asymmetric
relationships because the customer–company relationship is
dynamic in nature (Palmatier et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2016)
and develops over time in a nonlinear (Chen, 2015; Falk et al.,
2010) and asymmetric manner (Matzler et al., 2004; Slevitch
and Oh, 2010) (Table II).
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Key variables
Based on our review, Figure 3 provides an overview of the most
commonly used variables, which indicates that trust,
commitment and satisfaction are examined often in the
literature. Figure 3 also lists the relational variables that have
been appeared in at least three studies. The long list of variables
that appear in fewer than three studies includes goal
congruence, shared values, CCI, CCI velocity, CS velocity,
engagement and word of mouth.
The majority of the studies have examined the antecedents
and consequences of trust, commitment and satisfaction while
investigating the buyer–seller dynamic relationships.
Therefore, we only present the list of antecedents and
consequences of these three variables and their respective
dynamic perspectives (Table III). Trust is the variable of
interest in 20 studies, out of which 13 were empirical studies
while 7 studies build conceptual foundations of trust
development. In addition, most of the studies that examine the
antecedents and consequences of trust concentrate on RLP and
RAP. Trust receives scant attention from the RVP and ADP
perspectives, and only one study incorporates trust as an
antecedent of commitment velocity in light of the velocity
perspective. This lack of research highlights the need for further
research that examines the antecedents and consequences of
trust using RVP and ADP. On the other hand, commitment
receives a fair amount of attention from the RLP, RAP and
RVP perspectives. However, commitment has not been studied
from an ADP. Most importantly, most of the studies that
investigate the consequences of commitment from the lifecycle
and velocity perspectives focus on firm performance but
overlook the role of commitment in generating relational
consequences such as loyalty, satisfaction, word of mouth,
relationship strength and emotional attachment. Table III
shows that satisfaction is the only variable that has been
examined in light of the RLP, RAP, RVP and ADP
perspectives. The large body of research that tries to delineate
the antecedents of satisfaction finds that suppliers’
commitment, service quality and customer orientation are the
key drivers that help to maintain longitudinal satisfaction. On
the other hand, customer loyalty and behavioral intentions
remain the key consequences of satisfaction.
Sectors and industries
Studies on dynamic relationships pay almost equal attention to
the manufacturing and service sectors (Figure 4). Conceptual
papers like Dwyer et al. (1987) and Ring and Van de Ven
(1994) that offer general conceptualizations of the dynamic
perspectives without addressing a specific sector are termed
“general,” whereas articles whose samples contain both the
service and the manufacturing sector (Dowell et al., 2015;
Kusari et al., 2013; Pressey and Xuan, 2007; Williams, 1998)
are titled M&S. Although the overall distribution of studies is
largely equal, studies that use the RVP and ADP tend to center
on the service sector. As Table IV indicates, 75 per cent of the
studies that use RVP are conducted in the service sector, while
the ADP is not studied in the manufacturing sector. The RAP is
studied in both the manufacturing and service sectors in
isolation.
The dynamic aspects of the buyer–seller relationship are
studied in a wide range of industries (Figure 5), but the food/
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Table II Literature summary of dynamic perspectives

Perspective Source Characteristics Context
Relationship Dwyer et al. Conceptualizes the RLP and divides it into five stages: awareness, exploration, expansion, commitment and Conceptual
lifecycle (1987) dissolution
Zineldin Proposes an RLP approach that is analogous to a marriage between buyers and sellers and has four lifecycle phases Conceptual
(2002) that are based on relationship complexity: discovery, development, commitment and loyalty
Johnson and Introduces four lifecycle stages that are analogous to personal relationships and argues that relationships develop Conceptual
Selnes (2004) from strangers to acquaintances to friends to partners and that they may resolve at any stage during the
developmental process
Zhang et al. The only study in RLP that uses longitudinal panel data and hidden Markov models to capture detailed information B2B
(2016) from four stages of relationship development: transactional, transitional, communal and damaged
Marcos and Discusses relationships’ decline and introduces three phases of relationship decline: unawareness, divergence and B2B
Prior (2017) degeneration
Relationship Hibbard et al. Contends that relationship development is a continuous process of trust, commitment and dependence that B2B
age (2001) declines and whose impact on performance declines as the relationship ages
Jap and Compares the buyer–seller relationship at various lifecycle stages and finds that the maturity stage is not the peak B2B
Anderson of growth trajectory, as the relational constructs perform better in the expansion stage, and that the boundaries
(2007) between other developmental stages are blurred, which suggests that relationships develop in a continuous
manner
Huang and Proposes that relational variables grow continuously and nonlinearly as time passes and are not bound to Conceptual
Wilkinson predetermined set of development stages; introduces a process model of trust that explicates that trust and
(2013) relational variables follow an ongoing process of development and cannot be captured at a static point; suggests
that the development depends on specific actions and interactions
Relationship Palmatier et al. Introduces the RVP by combining the RLP and RAP, argues that relationships develop in both discrete and B2B
velocity (2013) continuous ways and that information from both parameters in the growth trajectory is central to understanding
the dynamics of the buyer–seller relationship
Lam et al. Examines the dynamic element of the CBI construct as the CBI growth rate but lacks wide generalizability of the B2C
(2013) concept
Huang and Adopt RVP and expand the concept to include two novel dynamic constructs: CS velocity and CCI velocity B2C
Cheng (2016),
Huang et al.
(2017)
Asymmetric– Falk et al. Argue that the buyer–seller relationship unfolds over time in a nonlinear and asymmetric manner and uses B2C
dynamic (2010) nonlinear SEM to capture quadratic effects and validate their conceptualization
relationship

agricultural products industry, the automobile industry, the

electronics industry, the telecommunications industry and the Figure 3 List of key variables
metal industry receive more attention than others. Because Trust 20
the list of targeted industries is large, we report industries that Commitment 18
are researched by at least three studies, keeping in mind that Sasfacon 16
some studies’ samples are drawn from more than one industry Performance 8
Norms 7
(Ambrose et al., 2008; Claycomb and Frankwick, 2010;
Conflict 6
Dagger et al., 2009). Communicaon 6
Dependence 6
Methodological approaches Loyalty 4
The articles we analyze adopt a diverse set of methodological Serivce Quality 4
Commitment Velocity 3
approaches. All of the studies can be categorized into one of
Relaonship Quality 3
four major types: conceptual, cross-sectional, longitudinal and
case studies. Figure 4 shows the distribution of the articles we
review in terms of the type of study. A total of 15 per cent of the 2001; Jap, 2001; Jap and Anderson, 2007) or to investigate
studies are conceptual in nature, laying the foundation (Dwyer buyer–seller dynamic relationships under the umbrella of prior
et al., 1987; Ring and Van de Ven, 1994; Schurr, 2007) or  ahin et al., 2016). However,
theories (Harmeling et al., 2015; S
conceptualizing the basic ingredients of the various these studies do not investigate relationship development over
perspectives (Goldring, 2010; Huang and Wilkinson, 2013; time using time series data but use buyers’ and sellers’ self-
Zineldin, 2002); 57 per cent of the studies are cross-sectional reported stages of relationship development or use the
studies that apply a quantitative approach either to validate relationships’ age as an indicator of relationship development.
their own conceptualizations (Falk et al., 2010; Hibbard et al., Researchers tend to use cross-sectional data when they have

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Table III The antecedents and consequences of trust, commitment and satisfaction
Trust Commitment Satisfaction
Perspective Antecedents Consequences Antecedents Consequences Antecedents Consequences
Lifecycle Customer Commitment, Competency, Performance, Customer Share of customer
orientation, Supplier integrity, Actual sales orientation,
Buyer relationship performance, Customer Overall Service quality,
specific investment, Satisfaction, orientation, performance Comparative value,
Supplier Promoter score, Goodwill, Trust
relationship-specific Relationship Perspective taking, Supplier
investment, investment, Emotional concern, commitment,
Relational norms, Confidential Emotional Cooperative norms,
Supplier communication, contagion, Conflict, Buyer
opportunistic Actual sales, Trust in salesperson dependence,
behavior, Overall Supplier
Reputation, performance dependence,
Communication Goal congruence,
sympathy, Alternative
Shared values, suppliers,
Perspective taking, Relationship length
Emotional concern,
Emotional
contagion
Age Adaptive selling , Attitudinal loyalty, Supplier’s Negative word of Retailer’s Attitudinal loyalty,
Selling orientation, Behavioral loyalty, transaction-specific mouth, perception of Behavioral loyalty,
Purchase Relationship investments, Positive word of supplier Cross buying,
importance strength, Relational norms, mouth, commitment Negative word of
Customer referrals, Explicit contracts, Relationship mouth,
No. of services Retailer’s strength, Positive word of
purchased, transaction-specific Customer referrals, mouth,
Performance, investments No. of services Relationship
Intention to remain purchased, strength,
with buyer, Performance, Customer referrals,
Duration of Satisfaction, No. of services
relationship Conflict level purchased
Velocity Commitment Perceived Relationship Service quality, Customer loyalty
relationship quality, Positional
investment, Sales performance performance,
Customer trust in Velocity
seller, performance
Bilateral
communication
Capabilities
Bilateral investment
capabilities
Asymmetric Functional quality,
Hedonic quality

difficulty accessing longitudinal panel data from the same
respondents (Eggert et al., 2006; Huang and Chiu, 2018), but
some of the studies overcome such difficulties and use
longitudinal panel data to get insights on buyer–seller
relationship development. Although only six studies use
longitudinal panel data, and four of these are centered on the
RVP (Huang et al., 2017; Huang and Cheng, 2016; Lam et al.,
2013; Palmatier et al., 2013), the remaining two studies
examine relationship development using the RLP (Zhang et al.,
2016) and RAP (Autry and Golicic, 2010). A total of 18 per
cent of the studies use the case study method to examine the
relationship development of buyer–seller dyads. These studies
are built on qualitative grounds and use interviews for data
collection (Ioanna-Maria et al., 2009; Khan and Nicholson,
2014; Ming-Huei and Wen-Chiung, 2011). Although cross-
sectional studies dominate the methodologies used, the
contributions from conceptual, longitudinal and case studies
indicate that buyer–seller dynamic relationships can be
examined with any type of study. All of the methods provide
valuable insights on the relationship development process, but

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the preference for one or another type of methodology may
depend on the study’s research objectives and compatibility
with the research setting (Figure 6).
We find that the statistical techniques that are used in our
sample of studies are based on their suitability with dynamic
perspectives:
 latent growth curve modeling;
 multivariate hidden Markov models;
 structural equation modeling (SEM);
 nonlinear structural equational modeling;
 regression (logistic, hierarchal, ordinary least square and
seemingly unrelated regression);
 Hierarchal multivariate linear modeling; and
 Analysis of variance and multivariate analysis of variance.
Figure 4 Distribution of studies by sector
Discussion and future directions
Comparison among dynamic perspectives
Our literature synthesis reveals that research on the buyer–
seller dynamic relationship is still in the early phases of its
evolution, as researchers’ disagreement on dynamic
perspectives is increasing, which is evident from the emergence
of new perspectives. Although Dwyer et al. (1987) laid the
foundation of the RLP by conceptualizing relationship lifecycle
stages, this was challenged by the proponents of RAP (Hibbard
et al., 2001; Jap and Anderson, 2007). Disagreeing with both
the RLP and RAP, Palmatier et al. (2013) claim that neither
provides complete information about the buyer–seller dynamic
relationship and introduce a novel perspective, the RVP
perspective. On the same continuum but with a different
perspective, Falk et al. (2010) advance the notion (asymmetric-
dynamic) that the buyer–seller relationship does not develop on
a linear path. This discussion shows that no perspective
captures all the information from the buyer–seller relationship
trajectory, so consensus is not yet achieved on any perspective.
Our in-depth analysis indicates that RVP performs better in
encapsulating dynamic effects from relationships’ growth
trajectory, as it can capture discrete effects at a particular level
of relationship development and, continuous effects (the rate of
change in relationship development over time) simultaneously
(Table V). In addition, RVP is the only perspective that can
capture the dynamic effects of relationships’ transitions from
one developmental stage to another (e.g. transition from the
build-up stage to the maturity stage). Even so, using RVP to
garner the aforementioned benefits is limited because it
requires longitudinal panel data and sophisticated statistical
techniques. In this regard, a large body of research highlights

Table IV Distribution of studies among different sectors for individual perspective

Manufacturing Service Both (M&S) General
Perspective N %age N %age N %age N %age Total N
Lifecycle 15 38.4 11 28.2 9 23.1 4 10.2 39
Age 6 46.1 6 46.1 0 0 1 7.8 13
Velocity 1 12.5 6 75.0 1 12.5 0 0 08
Asymmetric–dynamic 0 0 1 100 0 0 0 0 01
Total 22 36 24 39 10 17 5 8 61

the difficulties in maintaining the same sample of respondents

Figure 5 List of targeted industries over time to develop longitudinal panel data (Eggert et al.,
2006; Huang and Chiu, 2018; Ying et al., 2016). Because of
such limitations of RVP and engrained advantages of other
dynamic perspectives, all four perspectives have received
considerable attention in recent years [for example, RLP
(Huang and Chiu, 2018; Zhang et al., 2016), RAP (Dadzie
et al., 2017; Huang and Wilkinson, 2013), RVP (Huang et al.,
2017; Huang and Cheng, 2016)]. Therefore, future research
should compare these perspectives using empirical data from a
diverse range of industries to offer empirical evidence on each
perspective’s relative importance in encapsulating dynamic
effects. Authors should follow the procedures of Ambrose et al.
(2008), Claycomb and Frankwick (2010) and Dagger et al.
(2009) in selecting multiple industries from the service and
manufacturing sectors and compare these perspectives. In doing

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Figure 6 Study types so, future research should classify the dynamic perspectives with
respect to each perspective’s suitability for a particular sector or
industry and their ability to completely capture the dynamic
elements. Such a comparison would serve as a guiding principle
for future research on dynamic relationships because recent
research (Huang et al., 2017; Palmatier et al., 2013) also calls for
incorporating dynamic elements into research models to explain
the buyer–seller relationship.

Seller’s controllable factors

In addition to recent research calls, contemporary scholars have
long emphasized the role of dynamic elements in
understanding and managing buyer–seller relationships
(Dwyer et al., 1987; Huang and Chiu, 2018; Jap and Ganesan,
2000; Palmatier et al., 2013), yet few studies examine the

Table V Summary of dynamic perspectives

Context/study
type/
Perspective methodology Advantages Limitations
Lifecycle B2B, i) Captures dynamic effects at different levels of relationship i) Does not capture relationship performance during a
B2C, development transition from one relationship stage to another
Service, ii) Enables researchers to compare intra-dyad and inter-dyad stage
Manufacturing, relationship performance at different stages of their ii) Divides relationship development into discrete
Cross-sectional, development stages which overlooks the relationship development
Case study iii) Helps to formulate customized strategies for relationships within that particular relationship stage
Longitudinal, that are going through different stages of relationship iii) The conceptualization and number of
SEM, development developmental stages are highly debated
MHMM,
Regression
ANOVA
Age B2B, i) Examines the dynamics of any relationship dyad that follows a i) Assumes that all relationships develop with same
B2C, unique growth trajectory, i.e. linear or nonlinear pace which overlooks inter-dyad heterogeneity
Service, ii) Freely estimates dynamic effects without prior assumptions of ii) Does not capture dynamic effects from different
Manufacturing, discrete developmental stages developmental stages
Cross-sectional, iii) Helps to identify differences in relationship performance iii) The conceptualization and the way dynamic effects
Case study across relationship dyads with same age are captured are largely debated
Longitudinal,
Regression,
SEM
HLM
Velocity B2B, i) Simultaneously captures discrete and continuous effects i) It needs longitudinal panel data to encapsulate the
B2C, ii) Captures both the rate of change and the direction toward the rate and direction of change from relationship growth
Service, relationship is heading, i.e. increasing or declining trajectory
Manufacturing, iii) The only perspective that captures dynamic effects from ii) Maintaining the same sample for a longer period of
Cross-sectional, relationships’ transition from one stage to another stage of time is difficult task which also poses time and resource
Longitudinal, development constraints
LGCM, iii) Requires relatively complex statistical techniques, e.
HLM, g. LGCM and HLM to encapsulate dynamic effects
SEM
Asymmetric B2B, i) Captures nonlinear and dynamic effects simultaneously i) Does not take into account discrete stages of
B2C, ii) Divides relational asymmetries into positive and negative relationship development
Service, asymmetries ii) Existing research on this perspective is too limited to
Cross-sectional, iii) Helps to identify sellers’ controllable factors that contribute generalize its applicability
Quadratic-SEM more toward relationship development over the course of time iii) Overlooks some kinds of asymmetries for instance
power-based asymmetric buyer–seller relationship, etc.

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dynamic effects of sellers’ controllable factors on buyers’
relational consequences. Table III shows that research that
adopts the lifecycle perspective does well to investigate the
antecedents of trust, but there is no scrutiny of how sellers’
controllable factors influence buyers’ commitment,
satisfaction, loyalty, emotional attachment and willingness to
stay in the relationship. For instance, the research lacks
empirical evidence on how suppliers’ relationship-specific
investments affect buyers’ satisfaction, commitment and
emotional attachment who are at different levels of relationship
development (e.g. the exploration, build-up, maturity and
decline stages). Similarly, the extant literature does not
demonstrate how buyers’ commitment and satisfaction at the
exploration, build-up and maturity stages change in response to
sellers’ opportunistic behaviors. Table III also shows that
research that follows RAP, RVP and ADP pays little attention
to investigating the antecedents of trust and satisfaction. As
discussed earlier (and as shown in Table V), the velocity
perspective comes with built-in capabilities to capture the rate
and direction of change from the relationship trajectory. Future
research can adopt this perspective to investigate the rate of
change in buyers’ trust, satisfaction, emotional attachment and
loyalty that is caused by sellers’ relationship-specific
investments, suppliers’ dependence, suppliers’ customer
orientation and the dyad’s bilateral communication
capabilities, service quality and goal congruence. The research
may also help to disentangle the rate of change that each of the
sellers’ controllable factors brings to relational attributes. Such
research is necessary if practitioners are to comprehend the
extent of changes in the effects of their relationship-marketing
efforts for their customers in the exploration, expansion,
maturity and decline stages of relationship development so that
managers can devise customized marketing strategies.
The extant literature suggests that the negative effects of
sellers’ controllable factors may cause more damage than the
benefits brought up by positive effects of other factors (Falk
et al., 2010). Therefore, future research could adopt ADP to
investigate whether the negative effects of sellers’ opportunistic
behavior on relational consequences supersede the positive
impact of sellers’ relationship-specific investments,
communication capabilities and customer orientation
strategies.
Antecedents and consequences of relational constructs
In general, the findings of our systematic review (Table III)
indicate that empirical research on the antecedents and
consequences of trust, satisfaction and commitment remains
limited. The other relational constructs, such as relationship
quality, loyalty, word of mouth and engagement, receive even
less attention. In particular, the research on the dynamic buyer–
seller relationship fails to incorporate emotional attachment in
its research models, although it is regarded as one of the central
constructs of relationship marketing and should not be ignored
(Kumar et al., 2017; Thomson et al., 2005). Therefore, future
research should investigate the antecedents and consequences
of these relational constructs to enrich the body of knowledge in
the realm of dynamic relationship marketing. While designing
research for the aforementioned relational constructs,
investigators should also pay attention to other important
factors. For instance, scant attention has been paid to
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investigating the dynamic effects of service quality and
relationship-management practices in influencing consumer
behavior in the B2C context, where an individual customer
engages in a long-term relationship with a large corporation
such as banking, financial services and health-care providers.
Future research may also examine how power asymmetry
affects the development of relationships between large
corporations and individual buyers.
Culture and other factors
The existing research on dynamic relationships also overlooks
the cultural factor, which could play a critical role in efforts to
devise customer-oriented global marketing strategies. The
academic community should consider culture, as increasing
numbers of firms are engaged or planning to engage in global
business transactions. For instance, the volume of trade
between China and the USA reached US$710bn in 2017
(USTR, 2018), but the two countries hold diametrically
opposed positions in terms of cultural dimensions. However,
the extant literature does not provide sufficient evidence on
how cultural differences affect the development of buyer–seller
relationships in the exploration, build-up, maturity and decline
stages. Future research may also examine the relationship
development between two competing brands from two
opposing cultures that engage in a relationship too. For
instance, Apple and SAMSUNG are two competing brands in
the cellphone market, but SAMSUNG is also the top supplier
of iPhone components (Forbes, 2016), so the practitioners may
benefit from knowing how such relationships develop over
time.
Li et al. (2018) indicate that the linguistic distance, a core
component of culture, negatively affects acquirer firms’ return
in mergers and acquisitions (M&A), which accentuates the
importance of cultural factors. Future research should
investigate how acquirer firms maintain and develop
relationships with their acquired firms’ existing buyers and
suppliers in the presence of cultural factors. The literature on
the dynamic buyer–seller relationship also lacks evidence on
post-M&A relationship development. Future research may
seek to determine whether acquirer firms carry forward their
acquired firms’ relationships with their buyers and suppliers
from their existing developmental stage (e.g. build-up or
maturity) or establish entirely new relationships and whether
the pace of relationship development changes after M&A.
In addition, the extant literature provides no empirical
evidence on the development start-up businesses’ relationships
with their suppliers and buyers when the start-ups grow from
start-up to unicorn and from unicorn to publicly listed
company.
The extant research documents that buyer–seller
relationships may be disrupted and rebuild occasionally if
partners continuously engage in corrective actions (Autry and
Golicic, 2010; Zhang et al., 2016). However, it is unclear
whether the relationship goes through all of the developmental
stages again during rebuilding process or it enjoys the same
levels of trust, commitment and goal congruence that it had
before the disruption. In this regard, future research may also
investigate whether trade partners’ responses to technical
failures and intentional negative behaviors (including relational
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Khalid Hussain et al.
transgressions, violation of relational norms and opportunistic
behaviors) differ during the relationship-rebuilding process.
Methodologies and sectors
On methodological grounds, a large body of research (Dowell
et al., 2015; Lam et al., 2013; Wagner, 2011) highlights the
limitations of cross-sectional data in analyzing buyer–seller
dynamic relationships and recommends the use of longitudinal
panel data. However, about 10 per cent of the studies that we
analyze (Figure 5) use longitudinal data but report inconsistent
findings. For example, Palmatier et al. (2013) analyze six years
of data from the manufacturing sector and find an increasing
linear growth trajectory for trust. In contrast, Zhang et al.
(2016) use six years of data and report an inverted U-shaped
growth trajectory for trust in the same sector. Such divergent
findings and the scarcity of longitudinal studies emphasize the
need for more research with longitudinal panel data.
Longitudinal studies on lifecycle perspective are particularly
few, and most of that research does not analyze the behavior of
the same respondents at various lifecycle stages. Instead,
researchers use respondents’ self-reported lifecycle stages at a
single point in time and examine how the respondents’
behavior at a particular stage (e.g. expansion) differs from that
of respondents who are at another stage (e.g. maturity).
The RLP and RAP are well researched in the service and
manufacturing sectors, but research on RVP remains skewed
toward the service sector (75 per cent studies), so more
research on this perspective should be done in the
manufacturing sector. Furthermore, the existing research on
this novel perspective reaches inconsistent findings. For
example, Huang and Cheng (2016) find that service quality
significantly impacts CCI velocity, while the same group of
authors (Huang et al., 2017) use the same data in a slightly
different model to report an insignificant impact of service
quality on CCI velocity. In addition, no study investigates the
rate of change in relational constructs from one developmental
stage (e.g. exploration) to another (expansion). In this regard,
Palmatier et al. (2013) speculate that velocity would show a
positive but slow rate of change in the exploration state,
increase during expansion, slowdown in the maturity stage and
would turn negative during the decline phase. This area
remains open for future empirical research, as research on this
novel perspective is limited.
Unlike the other three perspectives, the research on ADP is
scarce, but its importance in explaining dynamic relationships
cannot be overlooked. Customers do not behave in a linear
manner like machines (Chen, 2015), and failure to capture
behavioral asymmetries leads to inefficient resource allocation
and ineffective strategic management (Slevitch and Oh, 2010).
Therefore, adopting the ADP would enable researchers to
capture the nonlinear relational asymmetries that can help to
explain the buyer–seller relationship development (Falk et al.,
2010).
Strategic imperative
All the four perspectives must be studied further to advance the
body of knowledge on dynamic relationship management, as
the extant research that uses a static view to examine buyer–
seller relationships at a single point in time offers no deep
insights for strategy development. As strategies are made for
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long-term objectives but static view offers insights only at a
single time-point. In this regard, Lam et al. (2013) argue that
brand management strategies that work well at initial levels of a
relationship’s development may not pay off as the relationship
ages. Similarly, Zhang et al. (2016) assert the need for different
strategies for relationships at different stages of the
relationships’ development. These arguments suggest an
inevitable role of a dynamic element in the buyer–seller
relationship for strategic planning and management. Finally,
some largely ignored but important industries, such as the
health care, airline, online shopping platform (Amazon, ebay,
Tmall, JD), sports and cosmetics industries, may offer
interesting findings on the buyer–seller relationship’s
development that may be used to formulate industry-specific
strategies.
Conclusion
Theoretical contributions
This study offers several contributions to relationship
management researchers. Primarily, our study marks the first
attempt to synthesize the literature on dynamic perspectives
systematically. Our review reveals that most of the research on
buyer–seller dynamic relationships diverges in two facets: the
conceptualizations of dynamic relationships and the
identification of dynamic effects. In this regard, we find four
perspectives that conceptualize dynamic relationships and
provide mechanisms with which to capture the dynamic effects
that pertain to that conceptualization. However, the research
on these four perspectives remains scattered and disconnected.
Therefore, our systematic extraction and synthesis of the
literature on these four perspectives that summarizes their
conceptualizations, their prevalence in particular sectors and
industries and the methodological approaches they use to
capture dynamic effects presents a large pool of research in a
single article to facilitate relationship management researchers.
In addition, we provide a detailed commentary on each
perspective’s evolution, conceptualizations and applicability to
particular sectors and industries, and on the nature of the
dynamic effects that each perspective captures. We also report
the criticism or disagreement regarding each perspective that is
documented in the literature. The insights from our detailed
comparison of the lifecycle, age, velocity and ADPs can help
the academic community to choose a dynamic perspective that
best fits with their objectives and research settings. Finally, we
discuss opportunities for future research by highlighting each
perspective’s limitations and research gaps. We bring to the
attention of the academic community that perspective-based
comparison, adoption of particular types of studies (e.g.
longitudinal) and incorporation of certain factors (e.g. culture)
in theoretical models can yield useful insights. By addressing
these research gaps, future research will significantly enhance
the body of knowledge on dynamic relationships and help to
pave the way to effective strategic management.
Managerial implications
A literature review develops a reliable knowledge base for
managers and practitioners by accumulating insights from a
diverse range of studies on a single concept. Our review fulfills
this purpose by synthesizing the literature on dynamic
 The buyer–seller relationship
Khalid Hussain et al.
perspectives. Research on the buyer–seller dynamic
relationship highlights the key role of the dynamic element in
strategic planning and execution. A firm that understands how
its relationships with its buyers and suppliers is developing can
manage its strategies better than one that does not have this
understanding. However, the extant literature on the buyer–
seller dynamic relationship remains scattered, resulting in
difficulty in practitioners’ ability to apprehend the nature of
relationship development. In this regard, the current study
helps marketing managers by identifying the prevailing
dynamic perspectives and combining the dispersed research on
the buyer–seller dynamic relationship to help marketing
managers select the appropriate perspective based on its
characteristics and compatibility with the target industry or
sector.
Firms need a diverse set of strategies for its customers at
different states of relationship development, as strategies that
pay off at initial levels may fail at later stages. Information on
relationship stages and between stages (transition) is central to
understanding dynamic relationships. Unlike machines,
customers do not behave in a linear way; instead, their behavior
contains a set of nonlinear and asymmetric properties that are
critical factors of dynamic relationships that mangers should
ponder in formulating and executing customer-oriented
strategies. We also provide an overview of key relational/sellers’
controllable variables, methodological approaches and
statistical techniques that managers can use to investigate their
firms’ relationships’ performance.
Limitations
Like all research studies, this study has several limitations.
First, we extracted literature from only four electronic
databases: Web of Science, EBSCOhost Business,
ScienceDirect and Emerald. Although these databases host
most of the literature, they do not cover all of the scholarly work
published in the field of dynamic relationship management.
Including the literature that is available in other databases and
published in languages other than English could increase the
generalizability of our findings. Second, we included only
journal articles and conference papers in our review, but books,
student dissertations and other periodicals may also provide
useful information on the buyer–seller dynamic relationship.
Finally, we reviewed the literature that has adopted at least one
of the four selected (time-dependent) dynamic perspectives but
excluded the literature that examines the buyer–seller
relationship using other conceptualizations (e.g. power-based
asymmetric relationships).
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About the authors
Khalid Hussain received the PhD degree in marketing from
the School of Business, East China University of Science and
Technology, Shanghai, China. Currently, he is serving as a
Lecturer at a leading public sector university in Pakistan. His
main areas of research interest include relationship marketing,
services marketing, service management, hospitality and
tourism management, service quality and consumer behavior.
He has published a good number of research articles in peer-
reviewed international journals including Journal of Service
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Theory and Practice, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of
Product and Brand Management, International Journal of Market
Research and Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research.
Fengjie Jing is Professor and the Head of Marketing
Department, School of Business, East China University of
Science and Technology, China. He is a seasoned researcher
with a good number of research publications. His research
appeared in well-reputed journals including Journal of Business
Research, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Service
Theory and Practice, International Journal of Consumer Studies
and Journal of Consumer Behavior. His research portfolio
consists of consumer behavior, consumer psychology, services
marketing, service management, relationship marketing,
hospitality and tourism management and brand management.
Fengjie Jing is the corresponding author and can be contacted
at: fjjing@ecust.edu.cn
Muhammad Junaid is a PhD scholar studying marketing at
the School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute
of Technology, Beijing, China. His main areas of research
interest include relationship marketing, brand love, services
marketing, tourism marketing and consumer behavior. He has
published a couple of research articles in-peer reviewed
international journals including Journal of Product and Brand
Management, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Service
Theory and Practice and International Journal of Market
Research.
Huayu Shi is a PhD scholar studying marketing at School
of Business, East China University of Science and
Technology, China. Her main areas of research interest
include consumer behavior, relationship marketing and
services marketing. She has published a couple of research
articles in peer-reviewed international journals including
Journal of Service Theory and Practice and International
Journal of Consumer Studies.
Usman Baig is serving as a Lecturer at Department of
Management Sciences, Institute of Arts and Sciences,
Gujranwala, Pakistan. His main areas of research interest
include relationship management, organizational behavior
and service management. He has published a couple of
research articles in peer-reviewed journals.