When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the “social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system”, I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned “merely” with profit but also with promoting desirable “social” ends; that business has a “social conscience” and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers. In fact they are — or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously -preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.

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The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits

The authors integrate theory developed in several disciplines to determine five cognitive processes through which industrial buyers can develop trust of a supplier firm and its salesperson. These p...

An Examination of the Nature of Trust in Buyer–Seller Relationships:

This research examines the benefits customers receive as a result of engaging in long-term relational exchanges with service firms. Findings from two studies indicate that consumer relational benefits can be categorized into three distinct benefit types: confidence, social, and special treatment benefits. Confidence benefits are received more and rated as more important than the other relational benefits by consumers, followed by social and special treatment benefits, respectively. Responses segmented by type of service business show a consistent pattern with respect to customer rankings of benefit importance. Management implications for relational strategies and future research implications of the findings are discussed.

Relational Benefits in Services Industries: The Customer’s Perspective:

Academic literature and business practice are directing increased attention to the importance of creating value in buyer-supplier relationships. One method for creating value is to reduce costs in commercial exchange. The authors develop a model that explains how supplier behaviors and the management of suppliers affect a customer firm’s direct product, acquisition, and operations costs. The model proposes that these costs mediate the relationship between buyer-supplier relationship behaviors and the customer firm’s intentions to expand future purchases from the supplier. The model is tested on data collected from almost 500 buying organizations in the United States and Germany. The results indicate that increased communication frequency, different forms of supplier accommodation, product quality, and the geographic closeness of the supplier’s facilities to the customer’s buying location lower customer firm costs. In addition, customer firms intend to increase purchases from suppliers that provid...

Buyer-Supplier Relationships and Customer Firm Costs

Capturing value creation in business relationships: A customer perspective

Part I Introduction: 1. The Business Marketing Environment. Part 2 How Buyers Buy: 2. Fundamentals of the Purchasing and Materials Management Function 3. Management of the Business Buying Function. Part 3 Identifying the Customer: 4. Business Marketing Research and Information Systems 5. Market Segmentation, Positioning and Demand Projection. Part 4 Making and Moving the Goods: 6. Product Development, Management, and Strategy 7. Business Price Planning and Strategy 8. Business Marketing Channel Participants 9. Business Physical Distribution Management and Strategy. Part 5 Promoting and Selling the Goods: 10. The Personal Selling Function in Business Marketing Strategy 11. Business Sales Management 12. Advertising and Sales Promotion Strategy in Business Markets. Part 6 Trend in Business-to-Business Marketing 13. Marketing of Business Services 14. International Business Marketing 15. Ethical Considerations in Business-to-Business Marketing. Part 7 Comprehensive Cases.

Frank G. Bingham

Papers

Business marketing management