A Conceptual Model and Study of Cross-Cultural Business Relationships

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Abstract

Business-to-business marketing relationships have taken on a variety of names, ranging from long-term relationships, buyer-seller partnerships, strategic alliances, joint ventures, network organizations, to fully integrated hierarchical firms, cross-marketing agreements, etc. Oliver 1990, Gross and Neuman 1989, Webster 1992. Despite the plethora of terms used to describe business relationships, we know little about what determines a successful business relationship. This article develops a conceptual model of cross-cultural business relationships. An exploratory study was conducted to examine the impact of social and structural bonding as determinants of business relationship performance. The study found that knowledge of cultural orientation and its relationship to the social and structural bond that exists between partners is a key predictor of long-term commitment in cross-national business relationships.

Section snippets

Culture in Business Relationships: Interpersonal Aspects

Central to the research premise underlying the concept of interpersonal orientation in business relationships and the role that culture plays in influencing these relationships is the definition of culture. As such, culture is an important force determining managerial attitudes and practices; it influences the practice of management and is considered an essential tool for understanding the process of doing business (Allen, Miller, and Nath, 1988). Despite numerous areas in which culture can

A Conceptual Model

Using the Hofstede framework as a foundation, a conceptual model of the effects of culture and interpersonal orientation on business-to-business relationships is presented in Figure 1. Briefly, the model suggests national culture as defined by Hofstede’s four dimensions impacts an individual’s behavior both directly and indirectly (through organizational culture).

We are primarily interested in the influence of Hofstede’s individualism/collectivism dimension because of its connection with

Hypotheses

This conceptual model now allows us to develop hypotheses about the performance of business relationships between firms from different national cultures. Structural and social bonding are the antecedents to commitment in business relationships. The importance an individual will place on social bonding, which focuses on commitment to people, will be determined by national culture (i.e., IO as reflected by the individual’s individualist/collectivistic background).

In the context of the framework

Research Method

To test these hypotheses, we collected data from five national cultures. This research is an extension of a larger study based just on business relationships in the United States. Our study was designed as an exploratory study to begin testing the validity of our conceptual model.

Results and Discussion

We conducted regression analysis to examine the hypothesized relationships between a country’s culture in affecting the interpersonal relationship in a business-to-business relationship. The basis for the specific tests of the hypotheses and their results are presented in Table 1., Table 2..

The results in Table 1 and Equation 1 of Table 2 indicate that structural bonding and social bonding are positively related to commitment to the relationship and these results support H1a and H1b. A review

Conclusion

In this study we have attempted to increase our understanding of the critical yet neglected subject of business-to-business relationships and the importance of national culture, particularly interpersonal orientation as reflected through the impact of bonding. Drawing upon past work on social and structural bonding and the framework developed by Hofstede (1980) for describing a country’s national culture, a conceptual model was developed and an exploratory empirical test was conducted that has

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Korea Research Foundation.

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