I am torn between the two… a hybrid process perspective of buyer-supplier relationships

Abstract

It is common, nowadays, to read in academic studies that inter-organisational exchanges are dominated by a relational way of thinking rather than a transactional one. The increasing performance of supply chains results only from longterm partnerships concluded between supply chain members, and founded on their durable engagement in order to develop and consolidate the relationship. The aim, here, is to show, on the contrary, that transactional elements are not incompatible with the relational way of thinking; they could even strengthen the partnership between supply chain members under certain conditions. The case of logistics industry is used to argue the pertinence of a hybridisation model, and not an opposition, between transactional and relational ways of thinking.