Respect in Buyer/Seller Relationships

• Author: Laurence Ashworth,Jay Handelman,Peggy H. Cunningham,Maureen A. Bourassa
• Published date: 01 June 2018
• Date: 01 June 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1426

Respect in Buyer/Seller Relationships

Maureen A. Bourassa*

University of Saskatchewan

Peggy H. Cunningham

Dalhousie University

Laurence Ashworth

Queen’s University

Jay Handelman

Queen’s University

Abstract

We explore respect’s meaning and impact as experienced by

individuals in buyer/seller business-to-business relation-

ships. Though respect has known drivers and important

consequences, it is poorly def‌ined and understood,

especially in business literature. We reviewed literature from

various f‌ields, including education, aging, and social work,

and conducted in-depth interviews with 24 North American

professionals. Through thematic analysis of transcripts, we

found respect is about valuing relationship partners. It

results not only in commitment and positive word-of-mouth

(as expected), but also positive emotions and citizenship

behaviours. We develop a synthesized and expanded model

of the determinants and outcomes of respect and point to

future research. Our f‌indings suggest managers should

consider how to build respect in buyer/seller relationships

to improve long-term outcomes. Copyright © 2016 ASAC.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: business-to-business, buyer/seller, qualitative,

relationships, respect

Résumé

Dans cet article, nous explorons la signif‌ication du mot

respect st son impact sur les personnes engagées dans des

relations interentreprises de type vendeur/acheteur. Même

si le mot respect a des vecteurs connus et des conséquences

importantes, il reste mal déf‌ini et mal cerné,

particulièrement dans les travaux en commerce. Les travaux

passés en revue sont issus des disciplines différentes y

compris l’éducation, la gérontologie, et le travail social.

Par ailleurs, nous avons mené des entrevues approfondies

auprès de 24 professionnels nord-américains. L’analyse

thématique des transcriptions révèle que le respect implique

la valorisation des partenaires en relation. Il débouche non

seulement sur l’engagement et le bouche-à-oreille positif (tel

que prévu), mais aussi sur des émotions positives et des

comportements citoyens. Nous proposons un modèle

synthétique et étendu des déterminants et des conséquences

du respect, ainsi que des pistes de recherche futures. Nos

résultats montrent que les gestionnaires doivent penser à

inclure le respect dans les relations acheteur/vendeur af‌in

d’améliorer les résultats à long terme. Copyright © 2016

ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mots-clés : interentreprise, acheteur/vendeur, qualitatif,

relations, respect

Respect is a buzz word in business (De Cremer &

Mulder, 2007), but what does it really mean? To be sure, it

is frequently used in contexts as varied as statements of cor-

porate values, codes of ethics, and corporate culture develop-

ment manuals (Schwartz, 2005). Not only is the word respect

widely used, it also has known important consequences

—respect from groups can inf‌luence social engagement,

self-esteem, and even health (Huo & Binning, 2008), whereas

people act strongly in response to perceptions of disrespect

(De Cremer & Tyler, 2005). In addition, respect is founda-

tional to ethical relationships (Lightfoot, 2000; Schwartz,

2005), and is a fundamental aspect of business relationships

(Ulaga & Eggert, 2006). Finally, researchers studying busi-

ness relationships have acknowledged, in a cursory fashion,

the signif‌icance of respect (Berry, 1996; Butcher, Sparks, &

O’Callaghan, 2003; Costley, Friend, & Babis, 2005;

Dahlgaard-Park, 2012; Haryati & Ndubisi, 2011; Murphy,

1999; Murphy,Laczniak, & Wood, 2007; Winstead, 2000).

Nonetheless, research to understand the meaning and

the full impact of respect is not plentiful. Within the social

psychology and organizational behaviour f‌ields, research

on respect is just starting to emerge (Clarke, 2011; Rogers

This research was supported by funding through the Social Sciences and

Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

*Please address correspondence to: Maureen A. Bourassa, Edwards School

of Business, University of Saskatchewan, 25 Campus Drive, Saskatoon,

Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 3A5. Email: bourassa@edwards.usask.ca

Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences

Revue canadienne des sciences de l’administration

35: 198–213 (2018)

Published online 16 December 2016 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com)DOI: 10.1002/CJAS.1426

Can J Adm Sci

35(2), 198–213 (2018)Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 198

& Ashforth, 2014; Van Quaquebeke & Eckloff, 2009), and

within workplace contexts it is limited (Singh & Winkel,

2011). Even a shared def‌inition of respect is lacking

(Grover, 2013)—a fact that remains “one of the essential

conceptual challenges facing this emerging f‌ield”(Huo &

Binning, 2008, p. 1571). Our work is designed to address

this knowledge gap, and it investigates respect in one

particular business-to-business (B2B) context—buyer/seller

relationships within supply chains. Business relationships

are frequently studied at an organizational level, but we

investigate the role of respect at the individual level. This

ref‌lects an emerging trend in the relationship marketing

literature, where it has been acknowledged that investments

in relationship marketing may have stronger effects on

exchange outcomes when they are targeted at an individual

employee rather than the employee’sf‌irm (Palmatier, Dant,

Grewal, & Evans, 2006). As a result, researchers are now

studying individual-level relationship marketing variables

(e.g., gratitude and reciprocity) because, just like f‌irm-level

variables, they too affect performance outcomes (Palmatier,

Jarvis, Bechkoff, & Kardes, 2009; Pervan, Bove, &

Johnson, 2009). Thus, the purpose of our study is to come

to a more complete understanding of respect in the context

of buyer/seller B2B relationships from the perspective of

individuals involved in these relationships.

Background

The goal of our review was to synthesize the limited lit-

eratures on respect from various f‌ields and to build a prelim-

inary understanding of what respect means, its antecedents,

and its consequences. In this section, we highlight both the

complexity and meaning of respect, and review its known

antecedents and outcomes.

Respect’s Complexity and Meaning

As alluded to in our introduction, respect is neither well-

def‌ined (Grover, 2013) nor well-understood (Rogers &

Ashforth, 2014) across a number of f‌ields. Overall, there is

pervasive recognition that respect is multifaceted, compli-

cated, and misunderstood (Frei & Shaver, 2002; Langdon,

2007; Montgomery, Kane, & Vance, 2004; Sennett, 2003).

In the marketing literature, clear and common def‌initions

of respect are lacking (Beatty, Mayer, Coleman, Reynolds,

& Lee, 1996; Winstead, 2000). Instead, within this context,

respect is often def‌ined in terms of perceptions of the behav-

iours and kinds of treatment that convey respect (e.g., com-

pany thanks customers, keeps promises; Berry, 1996) or

disrespect (e.g., customers endure long waits or are ignored;

Baldasare, 1995; Bitran & Hoech, 1990). For example,

Butcher et al. (2003) def‌ined respect as treating the customer

as important and as any other person would like to be

treated, not making “insulting offers”(e.g., highballing),

and not taking the customer to be an idiot, for example.

Although respect is manifested in actions (Sennett,

2003) and communicated through various behaviours and

discourse, it can be understood as something that resides in

the individual as a perception, thought, and/or belief. In spite

of the varying conceptualizations of respect, our literature

review informed a working def‌inition of respect, which

was later corroborated in our interviews. Like Grover

(2013) as well as organizational justice researchers (Bartel,

Wrzesniewski, & Wiesenfeld, 2012; De Cremer & Tyler,

2005; Lind, 1989), we have def‌ined respect as regarding a

relationship partner to be valuable and to have inherent

worth. In this sense, it can refer to respect for others, and

also to beliefs about the extent to which one is respected

by others.

Respect is important for its own sake, and also for its

connection to other important relationship variables such as

trust and power. In spite of the fact that respect and trust

are distinct constructs (Jurkiewicz & Giacalone, 2004), we

expect that people make inferences of trust based on the

extent to which they respect each other, and vice-versa.

The connection between respect and power is more

uncertain. Some researchers have found that when there

are power imbalances, respect matters more (Simon,

Lücken, & Stürmer, 2006), but others have noted that

authentic, mutual respect is less likely where there is a power

imbalance (Dutton, 2003; Lightfoot, 2000; Sennett, 2003).

Sources of respect. Across the literature, there are

two generally accepted and distinct antecedents of respect:

(i) recognition of the person, and (ii) acknowledgement of the

meritorious characteristics of the person (Butler & Drake,

2007; Clarke, 2011; Darwall, 1977; Grover, 2013; Rogers

& Ashforth, 2014; Van Quaquebeke & Eckloff, 2009). The

f‌irst antecedent, “recognition respect,”is about recognizing

a person as having inherent value (Darwall, 1977) and rights

(Spelman, 1978). The second antecedent, “merit-based”or

“appraisal respect,”is the result of relationship partners

who value each other because of perceived talents, expertise,

tenure, credentials, abilities, or other positive characteristics

(Darwall, 1977).

1

Consequences of respect. From our literature review,

there are three consequences of respect that may be particu-

larly relevant in a B2B relationship context: commitment to

the relationship, satisfaction with the relationship, as well as

cooperative behaviours and positive word-of-mouth.

Commitment. Respect is described as an ethical

construct, which is critical to relationship commitment

—“an enduring desire to maintain a valued relationship”

(Moorman, Zaltman, & Deshpande, 1992, p. 316)—because

“enduring relationships cannot be built or sustained without

a solid moral foundation”(Murphy et al., 2007, p. 38). To

the extent that respect is an important human goal and a fun-

damental entitlement (Miller, 2001), a relationship might be

pursued over the long-term simply because it is respectful.

There are documented conceptual and empirical arguments

for the relationship between respect and commitment

RESPECT IN BUYER/SELLER RELATIONSHIPS BOURASSA ET AL.

Can J Adm Sci

35(2), 198–213 (2018)Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 199