Determinants of a Relational Exchange Orientation in the Marketing-Manufacturing Interface: an Empirical Investigation

Abstract

During the last decade, both marketing managers and researchers have focused heavily on interorganizational exchange relationships. In this paper we apply the concept of relational exchange to the intra-organizational exchange relationship between the marketing and manufacturing functions. We apply a relational exchange instrument consisting of four dimensions (trust, bonding, empathy and reciprocity) to the marketing-manufacturing interface and conduct an empirical investigation in order to validate the use of such an instrument in this setting. We find that the relational exchange scale consists of four components of a relational exchange orientation that are both theoreticallymeaningful and empirically discrete. In addition, we identify five determinants(resource dependence, communication difficulties, procedural fairness,interfunctional rivalry and interfunctional distance) and explore how these determinants influence the individual dimensions of the relational exchange orientation. We report a number of differences between the marketing and manufacturing functions with regards to the impact of aforementioned determinants and relational exchange orientation dimensions.