A Contingency Perspective of Communication, Conflict Resolution and Buyer Search Effort in Buyer-Supplier Relationships.

This study Investigates the moderating effects of buying context on the relationship between communication elements and the effort buyers exert while searching for new suppliers throughout a buyer-supplier relationship development process. A mail survey of members of the "Institute for Supply Management" was conducted and the data were analyzed using moderated regression. The results suggest that company size, buyer experience, relationship duration and relationship importance affect the association between a buyer's search effort and the communication elements. Interestingly, the buying context affects the relationship between search effort and the communication elements in different ways and to a different extent in each stage of the relationship development process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]