Relationship Quality: Illustrations of ‘Best’ and ‘Worst’

Abstract

Research on RELQUAL-subjects have to a large extent applied ideas and frameworks provided by previous investigations without questioning or exploring the core of a relationship to develop an understanding of characteristics that describe well-functioning or deficient relationships. Still there is no consensus on how to define or measure relationship quality (Huntley, 2006; Skarmeas, Katsikeas, Spyropoulou and Salehi-Sangari, 2008; Athanasopoulou, 2009). The ‘relationship quality concept itself is still rather under-explored’ (Holmlund, 2008, p. 33), and more research is advocated that should focus on retail relationships, dyadic and qualitative studies ‘in order to get more detailed insights into the variables that affect the relationship quality in each context’ (Athanasopoulou, 2009, p. 604). Previous investigations have focused on the perceptions of one part of the business relationships, and mostly how the buyers conceive certain presumed relationship characteristics. On the one hand, this may provide an interesting and useful view of which factors are important to establish and develop a business relationship, since the buyer is in many cases the one that decides if he wishes or not to continue the relationship (Lages, Lancastre and Lages, 2008, p. 694). On the other hand, acquiring data based upon responses from only one part in a business relationship can lead to too narrow and biased a description of a well-functioning and/or deficient relationship, because both buyers and suppliers may have different opinions on what constitutes best and worst relationship quality.