Conceptualizing Marketing Relationship Models and their Impact on Customer Response

Abstract

In this paper we propose a conceptual framework consisting of four marketing relationship models – market, hierarchy, partnership, and community - that a company can enact to coordinate its interactions with customers. These models describe the proactive or reactive posture of the firm and its customers concerning their respective status and role in the value creation process. We develop conceptual arguments that identify the exchange characteristics that are best suited for each relationship model and hypotheses that link market and hierarchy models to transactional customer response and partnership and community models to relational customer response.