Firm Competitive Advantage Through Relationship Management

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

   PDF

2. Research on the Competitive Advantage of the Firm

   • Bartosz Deszczyński

   Pages 1-20Open Access

3. Theoretical Foundations of the Relationship Management Mid-Range Theory

   • Bartosz Deszczyński

   Pages 21-65Open Access

4. Relationship Management Maturity

   • Bartosz Deszczyński

   Pages 67-120Open Access

5. Validating the Relationship Management Maturity Concept

   • Bartosz Deszczyński

   Pages 121-158Open Access

6. Developing the Relationship Management Upper Mid-Range Theory

   • Bartosz Deszczyński

   Pages 159-216Open Access

7. Back Matter

   Pages 217-279

   PDF

Relationship management (RM) is an essential part of business, but its success as a business model can be hard to measure, with some firms embracing a model that is truly relationship-orientated, while others claim to be relationship-orientated but in fact prefer transactional short-term gain. 

This open access book aims to develop a mid-range theory of relationship management, examining truly relationship-orientated firms to discover not only what qualities these firms have that make them successful at the RM model, but also what benefits this model has for the firm. It addresses questions like how RM-mature companies achieve and sustain competitive advantage, and what determines the scale and scope of these firms, illustrating with case studies. 

This book will be of interest to scholars studying leadership and strategy, especially those interested in relationship management, business ethics and corporate social responsibility. It will also be of interest to professionals looking to develop their understanding of relationship management.

• relationship management
• business ethics
• corporate social responsibility
• strategy
• leadership
• Resource-Advantage Theory
• value creation
• Service Profit Chain
• Open Access

"The book addresses one of the long standing topics in strategy and marketing literatures that is interorganizational relationships. The author rigorously develops a measurement scale (a self-assessment tool), and provides adequate theoretical framing, validation, and discussion. The idea is that firms develop to various degrees useful features, and that these features form dimensions. Therefore a scale can be developed to measure how well does a firm do on those dimensions, and aggregate the scores to some kind of normative scale with mature and immature at both extremities. As a result readers receive a comprehensive, yet focused work on why relationships matter, how to measure organizational maturity in this respect, how do perform a self-assessment and what does this imply for their prospective performance. Interestingly, evidence that only mature firms can benefit from relationship management indicates a strategic choice: if managers want to benefit from relationships, then they need to care for the firms relational maturity."

 

-          Wojciech Czakon, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

• Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poznań, Poland

  Bartosz Deszczyński

Bartosz Deszczyński has been professionally involved in managing business relationships since 2003. He is Assistant Professor at Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poland in the Chair of International Marketing and an active consultant on CRM. He leads research project on relationship management funded by the Polish National Science Centre.