Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2012
Abstract
Scholarly literature supports the notion that businesses benefit from long term collaborative relationships with trading partners, yet arm's length, adversarial relationships between buyers and sellers persist. Although scholarly research provides insights regarding conceptual and operational aspects of buyer-seller collaborations, very little has been published concerning the preparation or activities that lead into collaborative relationships. To address this gap this study conducted research involving semi structured interviews with buyers and sellers to understand how collaboration evolves in buyer seller relationships. Of specific interest is how buyer seller relationships, characterized by fear of opportunism and guarded behavior, transition to collaboration characterized by openness and partnering behaviors. Findings suggest relationship specific adaptations such as zero based pricing and action research projects act as catalysts to break restrictive buyer paradigms and influence the re construction of buyer paradigms better aligned to collaborative interactions. This paradigm shift is associated with two significant outcomes: (1) an opportunity for sellers to assume a new identity in the eyes of the buyer and (2)increased organizational performance for buyers and sellers alike.
Keywords
buyer seller collaboration, knowledge, intellectual capital, paradigm shift, zero pricing, action research, cognitive dissonance, relationship specific adaptation
Rights
© The Author(s). This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Addison, Donald P. II, "Adversary To Ally: A Relational Approach To Shifting Buyer Paradigms" (2012). Student Scholarship. 72.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/72