Paper info

Developing a Standard Scale of Relationship Value in Business Markets

Andreas Eggert and Wolfgang Ulaga

The paper was published at the 17th IMP-conference in Oslo, Norway in 2001.

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