An Empirical Research On Antecedents And Consequences Of Ending Customer Relationship In B2B Markets

Cooperation between enterprises likes life which has a beginning and an end, from the enterprises feeling lack of resources, looking for partners, initiating partnership, maintaining the relationship to ending of the cooperation relationship. However, most of researches focus on the first four stages, rarely involve the end of the partner relationship. In Chinese business activities, there are many phenomena of ending the relationship between the enterprises. The partners had some losses because of the end of the relationship conflicts, even to seek legal ways to solve the problem. In Chinese culture, the relationship between enterprises is a node in the whole relationship network, if the breakage of the node would affect the entire network connection. This paper, taking the ending of enterprises relations as the theme, based on transaction cost theory, social exchange theory and resource dependence theory as the guide, explores the factors that impact the ending of cooperation relationships between the enterprises. This study, on the supplier’s perspective, also tests the influences of the enterprise ending competence on the corporate reputation and willingness of potential customers’ cooperation.First of all, this paper constructs a systematic framework including the important factors which push the end of relationship between enterprises through a cross case study, based on transaction cost theory, social exchange theory and resource dependence theory. This research also proposes that the emotional foundation of non-cooperation between the enterprises is distrust, which is impacted by four principal elements:opportunism, communication barriers, fulfill of the contract and complementary resources. The capability of relationship management is the security of the cooperation between enterprises. The interests including the cost of coordination and attractiveness of alternatives is the motivation of ending the partnerships.Secondly, based on questionnaire survey of304enterprises, the paper empirically tests the antecedents of ending the cooperation relationship intention. This study probes into mechanism of the influence of these factors on the ending the cooperation relationship intention, through transaction cost theory, social exchange theory and resource dependence theory. Based on the degree of the influence, the successive influence factors on the ending the cooperation relationship intention are attractiveness of alternatives, relationship management capability, the cost of coordination and distrust. The foundation of inter firms cooperation relationship is the feeling of trust, which are impacted by communication barriers, opportunism, the performance of the contract in order. The role of complementary resources between the enterprises on the feeling of distrust is not significant.Meanwhile, applied the above empirical study, this research presents the four dimensions of the termination competence for the supplier, including the perceived importance of termination, the identification of unwanted customers, termination routines and termination implement, in order to help supplier terminates the relationship with the unwanted customers. A firm needs to realize that unwanted customers do not offer sufficient value to the firm, but drain the firm’s resources. If a firm definite the unwanted customers exactly, and if the firm has clear termination routines, these contribute to the relationship management discipline of the firm, standardization of the termination routines and summarization the implementation of terminating experience.Finally, based on the network of a firm, this study proposes that termination cooperation relationship between the supplier and its unwanted customers will impact the corporate reputation and cooperative willingness of potential customers. According to the survey of304firms in China, the finding suggests that the competence of a firm’s relationship termination is satisfied to not only the unwanted customers, but also valuable customers because more resources help to maintain the customer relationship management. In addition, the competence of a firm’s relationship termination increases cooperative reputation through the customer satisfaction, and the termination relationship competence of a firm also impacts the cooperative willingness of potential customers through the customer satisfaction and percentage of valuable customers.In a word, integrated transaction cost theory, social exchange theory and resource dependence theory and literature of inter firms partner relationships, adapted a cross case study and empirical research method, this study clarifies the reasons for the ending of cooperation relationship between enterprises, and empirically tests the influence of a firm’s relationship termination competence on the corporate reputation. In the future, researchers may probe into some other potential stakeholders in the termination cooperative relationship from the static angle of view. From the dynamic perspective, researchers may analysis the whole process of the ending the cooperation relationship through a case study. Research into the termination relationship between enterprises may offer concrete guidelines for the inter-firm relationship management.