Forces Impinging on Long-Term Business-to-Business Relationships in the United States: An Historical Perspective

Rethinking the Emergence of Relationship Marketing

“…We have argued that the themes associated with RM were present in the marketing literature since before the turn of the twentieth century as Tadajewski (2008) and Keep, Hollander, and Dickinson (1998) have also documented. Through a review of consumer and industrial marketing scholarship, we were able to document extensive reflection on the value of cultivating relations with certain-not all-customers.…”

“…For instance, when we turn to those historical studies that are available in the business-to-business and services marketing areas, the origin of RM is usually positioned somewhere in the late 1970s (Grönroos 1994;Gummesson 1994aGummesson , 1994bMöller and Halinen 2000;Parvatiyar and Sheth 2000;Sheth and Parvatiyar, 2000;O'Malley and Prothero 2004;Palmer, Lindgreen, and Vanhamme 2005), even though the comprehensive historical studies of RM in business-to-business markets (Keep, Hollander, and Dickinson 1998) and in retailing (Tadajewski 2008) demonstrate the use of similar practices from the 1880s onward.…”

“…The studies by Keep, Hollander, and Dickinson (1998) and Tadajewski (2008) are not entirely unusual in that numerous scholars have questioned the ''received wisdom,'' which assumes that only recently have firms begun to devote attention to the fostering of longer-term relations with customers and suppliers (Palmer 1994;Gummesson 1994aGummesson , 1994bPetrof 1997;S. Brown 1998;Witzel 2000;Egan 2004;Tadajewski and Jones 2008).…”

“…A somewhat superior way of interpreting the RM shift is to accept its content is no different from the original marketing concept. (S. Brown 1998, 173-4;emphases in original) To complement the work of Keep, Hollander, and Dickinson (1998) and Tadajewski (2008), we respond to the call that ''We need a much more extensive literature that explores . .…”

Redefining B2B relationship marketing: Insight from postmodern Alibaba

“…It is important to note however that much of this work derives from relationship marketing in the B2C context, and that historical studies at the B2B level (e.g. Keep, Hollander, & Dickinson, (1998), Tadajewski & Saren, (2008) demonstrate the use of similar relational practices much earlier -from the 1880s onward. A historical investigation concerning pre-1970 literature in North America by Tadajewski & Saren (2009) concluded that although the concept of relationship marketing may be a relatively new development in marketing thought, in practice it is far from a new concept.…”