Customer-Perceived Value in Business Relationships: A Cross-Sectional Survey Among Purchasing Managers in Germany

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the value construct. Delivering superior value to customers is a major concern of management in many business markets of today. In addition, « value » is considered as a fundamental constituent of relationship marketing. In fact, delivering superior value to customers is key to creating and sustaining long-term industrial relationships. From an empirical point of view, however, it is still not clear how the construct interacts with other prominent marketing variables. For example, researchers have recently questioned the role of satisfaction and called for a replacement of the construct by customer value as a more powerful predictor of behavioral outcomes in business markets (Gross, 1997).