Maintaining business relationships: resilience through institutional work

Abstract

Purpose Business relationships are considered long-term and stable. Furthermore, over time, business relationships are expected to become and remain “institutionalized”. The undertone is that this process is deterministic and inevitable. While the authors do not question the long-term nature of business relationships, they argue that the process of “institutionalization” requires more construct clarity. Consequently, they ask the following: What is the source of resilience in business relationships, and how are these relationships maintained over time? Design/methodology/approach To unravel these questions, the authors conducted an historical case study of a business relationship between a..