Social Exchange Theory And Inter Organizational Relationship

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The notion of power is regarded highly important in an inter-organizational relationship as an organization could use its positive benefits in gaining competitive advantage within its industry (Porter 1985). Organizations build relationships with other organization by tapping into their resources in order to give utmost value to their customers (Fill and Fill 2005:26). These interactions amongst organization are conducted usually in business to business markets where transactions are between the manufacturer and wholesaler or retailer in which there are no or less exchanges with the end customer. It is however, inevitable to avoid conflicts in the process of interactions but positive approaches can be adopted by organizations in reducing frictions …show more content…

Three views of theoretical foundations are widely considered in business to business marketing: social exchange theory, social penetration theory and interaction theory. The social exchange theory as pointed out by Blau (1964, cited in Hsin Hsin et al. 2015:867) is described as social interactions involving two or more parties in order to achieve a mutually benefiting goal. What this means is that, in the marketing sphere, organization are expected to seek ways of the norm of buying and selling but develop relationships which could lead to customer retention, thereby recognising interdependence in sustaining the social exchange relationship. The social exchange theory deals with the issues of rewards and trust among the trading partners which derived from a continuous exchange of financial outcomes over a period of time (Fill and Fill 2005:149). Autry and Golicic (2010) advocates that the strength of any relationship is dependent on trust and commitment and successful fulfilment of objective. Cropanzano (2005) argues that relationship between two parties can best be sustained in the long run if certain rules of exchange are adhered to. These rules provide guidelines in which both parties are expected to comply during their exchanges …show more content…

(2000). According to Baack et al. (2000), the social penetration theory is also viewed as the “onion theory” of personality in which the different layers of personality are penetrated by the buyer or seller thus creating an atmosphere for trust. This theory demonstrate that organization will reveal information when they discover that their personality traits match and can sufficiently engage in other aspects of the transaction that would be mutually benefitting to them. From an organizational view, the social penetration theory seeks to acquire more knowledge from other organizations through continuous interactions, hence information is revealed to each party (Fill and Fill

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