Paper info

Relationship Dissolution Understood In Terms Of Learning Barriers

Debbie Harrison and Lena Bygballe

The paper was published at the 19th IMP-conference in Lugano, Switzerland in 2003.

Research on the ending of relationships has been conducted in the areas of business-to-business, business-to-consumer, romantic or personal, marketing channels, client-agency relationships in advertising and accounting, joint ventures, and strategic alliances. Researchers have considered the dissolution of both vertical and horizontal relationships among actors. It is fair to say that the majority of these studies have been at the level of the dyad. There is a paucity of research focused at the triadic or net level. In this paper a case study of multiple business relationship dissolution is presented. A large marine sector supplier in Scandinavia switched many supplier relationships simultaneously after a review exercise in 2001. This paper contributes to existing literature by providing an explanation of the multiple dissolutions in terms of inter-organisational learning barriers. Learning barriers can be linked to relationship dissolution both as a cause and as a consequence. It is possible to explain dissolution by referring to the inability of a relationship to obtain perceived learning benefits. This implies that learning barriers are considered as causes to relationship dissolution. Secondly, learning barriers can be considered as a consequence of multiple relationship dissolution. That is, as companies engage in such dissolution, opportunities for learning might be weakened. This paper adds to existing examples of multiple relationship dissolutions that result in network changes, by providing an argument for explaining the antecedents, processes, and outcomes of dissolution using the concept of inter-organisational learning barriers.