Developing a Standard Scale of Relationship Value in Business Markets

Value creation is considered as key to collaborative customer-supplier relationships. Despite the growing body of research, more knowledge is needed about the construct of relationship value and its operationalization. The present paper provides a definition of relationship value and develops a scale for measuring the concept in business-to-business markets. Findings from a cross-sectional survey among purchasing managers in industrial companies in France are presented. Four relationship value components emerge from the present study: product-related benefits, strategic benefits, personal benefits, and relationship sacrifices. Finally, a method of aggregating the four components to the higher-order construct of relationship value is proposed.

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