Research On The Spontaneous Behavior Of Middlemen Based On Relational Bonds

The topic on the relationship between suppliers and middlemen is always important in the field of marketing research. In recent years, with intensive market competition, the focus of competition has gradually shifted from previous product, price and service to each process in the industry supply. It is also showed that competition has changed from competition of individual industries to that of entire chains contained by each industry. Management of relationship between suppliers and middlemen plays a leading role. How to better this management and how to link interests of these two kinds of persons to form coordinative effect in competition is a management problem gradually concerned by manufacturers and middlemen.In view of the reason mentioned above, by using the questionnaire and in-depth interviews with suppliers and distributors of fishing and clothing industry at Yantai and Weihai, this thesis, with the empirical study, mainly does a exploratory research on the relationship of suppliers and middlemen and its behavioral results from the point of view of relational bonds and relationship quality. Firstly, this thesis opens with an literature review about the theories in this field, defining related concepts and the standards to choose the variables; secondly, based on the previous studies, the present study puts emphasis on the relational bonds and relationship quality and go further to choose the relationship quality as the intermediate variable, thus providing the overall frame of this thesis: that is relational bonds as prepositional variable, relationship quality as intermediate variable and intensity of industry competition as mediatory variable to study outcome variable of spontaneous behavior. Under the guidance of overall frame, this thesis, using a variety of statistical methods, builds up the assumptions of this study and designs the self-test dimensions of variables and independent variables so as to arrive at the conclusion. This study finds that the spontaneous behavior of middlemen is really a complex and systemic process, which will have a different and regular behavioral result in the different ways of relationship combination and under the influence of relationship quality. According to the findings, this study makes some conclusions about the relationship management of suppliers and middlemen in consumer goods industry as follows: structural combination becomes increasingly important, and is the most effective means to speed up the alliance, partnership and strategic partnership of suppliers and middlemen; financial combination is also the most direct way to maintain and solid the relationship of suppliers and middlemen in an increasingly competitive industry environment; the role of satisfaction to maintain the channel relationship is becoming more and more weakening and the influence of trust and commitment on the spontaneous behavior of middlemen is the most effective, while the relationship quality set up by trust and commitment mainly depends on financial combination and structural combination.The main contribution of this paper lies in the use of normative empirical study with the three different variable forms: prepositional variable, intermediate variable and mediatory variable, choosing a different research standard such as choosing indicators of satisfaction, trust and commitment as intermediate variables and the indicator of the intensity of industry competition as mediatory variable. The thesis adopts several multi-statistical methods including correlation analysis, factor analysis, and covariance structure model analysis in order to explore the characteristics of the outcome variable caused by the spontaneous behavior of middlemen. The viewpoint and the result of this study reflect that the present research is a new attempt in this felid.