Abstract
In this chapter, we develop the concept of interactors (i.e., actors from the interaction perspective). Analysing actors’ interaction behaviours in business relationships is challenging, as it entails revisiting the concept of actor and re-examining the variables underlying actors’ behaviours. We examine first how actors have been viewed in prior research on business relationships and then review two research streams that offer impulses for re-examining the concept and role of actors from the perspective of the interaction processes in business relationships. The first is the social interactionism stream in sociology (e.g., Goffman in Interaction Ritual. Anchor, New York, 1967); the second is what is known as the sensemaking stream in social psychology (e.g., Weick in Sensemaking in Organization. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1995). Our point of departure is that actors’ behaviours in interaction, in general, and in business relationships, in particular, reflect their mutual perceptions and the identities they attribute to the counterpart with whom they interact. We contend that interaction is a central process if we are to explain how business relationships develop and focus therefore on the mutual attribution of identity and on the consequences of the ascribed identities on how interaction unfolds. We conclude the chapter by discussing what dimensions of the role of customers and suppliers matter most in the eyes of the counterpart.
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La Rocca, A. (2020). Actors in Interaction. In: Customer-Supplier Relationships in B2B. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40993-7_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40993-7_4
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