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Paper info: Affective Relationship Commitment in Industrial Customer-Supplier Relations:A Psychological Contract Approach

Title


Affective Relationship Commitment in Industrial Customer-Supplier Relations:A Psychological Contract Approach

Authors


AkmalS. Hyder, Lars Lönnstedt and MikaelA. Lövblad

Place of Publication


The paper was published at the 25th IMP-conference in Marseille, France in 2009.

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Abstract


       Based on social exchange theory, a vast body of research has applied trust-commitment theory to explain marketing relationships and to predict their outcome in industrial contexts. Affective commitment in particular has drawn much attention. A review of the literature shows that the research in the field is both scattered and fragmented. Further, the cultural context surrounding the relationship appears to play a more central role than previously assumed. The construct of psychological contract frequently used in organizational research can serve as a framework in understanding affective relationship commitment. Building on the psychological contract, this conceptual paper offers, through a number of relevant hypotheses, a coherent theory of affective relationship commitment in customer-supplier relations, which is apparently also effective in varying cultural contexts.