Reframing Buyer–Supplier Relationships: Deep, Sticky, Transient and Gracious

In this chapter, we reframe and expand the buyer–supplier relationships beyond the conventional framework. We do that by disentangling and integrating the two theoretically orthogonal relationship aspects—relational posture (i.e., how two partners relate and behave toward each other) and relational intensity (i.e., how closely two partners are coupled in their operations and businesses). We propose four different buyer–supplier relationship archetypes—deep, sticky, transient and gracious. Each relationship type is unique in its own right, with distinctive strategic and managerial implications. We provide in-depth discussion of each archetype, along with some pertinent real-world examples, where we highlight both the bright and dark sides of respective buyer–supplier relationships.