Relationship Marketing
Relationship Marketing in Consumer Markets: Antecedents and Consequences
Jagdish N. Sheth Atul Parvatiyar
Emory University
Understanding the motivations of consumers to engage in relationships with marketers is important for both practitioners and marketing scholars. To develop an effective theory of relationship marketing, it is necessary to understand what motivates consumers to reduce their available market choices and engage in a relational market behavior by patronizing the same marketer in subsequent choice situations. This article draws on established consumer behavior literature to suggest that consumers engage in relational market behavior due to personal influences, social influences, and institutional influences. Consumers reduce their available choice and engage in relational market behavior because they want to simplify their buying and consuming tasks, simplify information processing, reduce perceived risks, and maintain cognitive consistency and a state of psychological comfort. They also engage in relational market behavior because of family and social norms, peer group pressures, government mandates, religious tenets, employer influences, and marketer policies. The willingness and ability of both consumers and marketers to engage in relational marketing will lead to greater marketing productivity, unless either consumers or marketers abuse the mutual interdependence and cooperation.
INTRODUCTION
Several areas of marketing have recently been the focus of relationship marketing including interorganizational issues in the context of a buyer-seller partnership (Dwyer,
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Volume 23, No. 4, pages 255-271. Copyright 9 1995 by Academy of Marketing Science.
Schurr, and Oh 1987; Johanson, Hall6n, and SeyedMohamed 1991), network structures and arrangements (Anderson, H/~kansson, and Johanson 1994), channel relationships (Boyle, Dwyer, Robicheaux, and Simpson 1992; Ganesan 1994), sales management (Swan
Jagdish N. Sheth Atul Parvatiyar
Emory University
Understanding the motivations of consumers to engage in relationships with marketers is important for both practitioners and marketing scholars. To develop an effective theory of relationship marketing, it is necessary to understand what motivates consumers to reduce their available market choices and engage in a relational market behavior by patronizing the same marketer in subsequent choice situations. This article draws on established consumer behavior literature to suggest that consumers engage in relational market behavior due to personal influences, social influences, and institutional influences. Consumers reduce their available choice and engage in relational market behavior because they want to simplify their buying and consuming tasks, simplify information processing, reduce perceived risks, and maintain cognitive consistency and a state of psychological comfort. They also engage in relational market behavior because of family and social norms, peer group pressures, government mandates, religious tenets, employer influences, and marketer policies. The willingness and ability of both consumers and marketers to engage in relational marketing will lead to greater marketing productivity, unless either consumers or marketers abuse the mutual interdependence and cooperation.
INTRODUCTION
Several areas of marketing have recently been the focus of relationship marketing including interorganizational issues in the context of a buyer-seller partnership (Dwyer,
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Volume 23, No. 4, pages 255-271. Copyright 9 1995 by Academy of Marketing Science.
Schurr, and Oh 1987; Johanson, Hall6n, and SeyedMohamed 1991), network structures and arrangements (Anderson, H/~kansson, and Johanson 1994), channel relationships (Boyle, Dwyer, Robicheaux, and Simpson 1992; Ganesan 1994), sales management (Swan