40 The Marketing Book
refers to as handling problems and limitation
problems.
Gummesson (1987) argues that, because of
their importance, relationships must become
central to strategic planning both at corporate
and marketing levels. This suggests that there
are relationships that are of concern to corp-
orate planners and relationships that are the sole
concern of marketing. Despite this, Morgan and
Hunt (1994) and Gummesson (1994) identify a
range of relationships in which a company is
likely to be involved, and thus, by implication,
within the domain of marketing. Morgan and
Hunt’s (1994) conceptualization is presented in
Figure 3.2. It suggests four broad categories of
relationships: supplier partnerships, lateral
partnerships, customer partnerships and inter-
nal partnerships. Within each of these cate-
gories, the authors further specify a number of
particular relationships. These include supplier
relationships (with goods and service suppli-
ers), internal relationships (with employees
etc.), lateral relationships (with government,
competitors etc.) and buyer relationships (with
immediate and ultimate customers).
Gummesson (1994) takes a much broader
view of the number of marketing relationships
a company is likely to be concerned with than
Morgan and Hunt (1994). He specifies 30Rs – or
thirty different relationships that span his
conceptualization of different levels of relation-
ship. However, marketing cannot, and indeed
may not, wish to be involved in all relation-
ships. While some authors consider that mar-
keters should focus only on the consumer,
others argue that marketers should adopt a
more strategic role in the organization and take
responsibility for any relationship that influ-
ences the ultimate sale. Berry (1995, p. 242)
defines relationship marketing in terms of a
means–end equation: ‘in effect, companies
must establish relationships with non-customer
groups (the means) in order to establish rela-
tionships with customers (the end)’. This defi-
nition effectively re-focuses marketing in terms
of end-customer relationships. This position is
consistent with other definitions that assume
that the aim of marketing is the development
of customer relationships (cf. Ford, 1980;
Berry, 1983; Jackson, 1985). Gr ̈onroos’ (1994)
definition does mention customers, but also
acknowledges the importance of ‘other part-
ners’. However, this position identifies a very
broad domain for marketing.
Having identified the range of relation-
ships that a firm must establish, maintain and
where necessary terminate, the next issue to be
addressed is how relationships can be formed,
maintained, enhanced and terminated. It is also
important to consider the factors that influence
these processes and the outcomes that are
sought by companies. The next section explores
models of relationship development and con-
siders these issues.Models of relationship development
Relationship marketing represents an incred-
ibly broad area of marketing thought and has
been strongly influenced by empirical evi-
dence from several business sectors, as well as
by theories and concepts from diverse dis-
ciplines. Indeed, concepts such as retention,
loyalty, commitment, trust, mutuality, reci-
procity, structural bonds and attraction are
central to understanding relationships. These
concepts have their origins in economics,
sociology, social exchange theory, small group
behaviour, psychology and elsewhere, and
have been borrowed, refined and moulded by
contemporary understandings of service rela-
tionships, business relationships and con-
sumer behaviour. Add to this understandings
of market-related behaviours influenced by
contemporary understandings of postmodern-
ism, critical theory, branding, consumer liter-
acy and organizational networks, and we
begin to understand how this intricate and
influential body of thought has been woven,
such that it is difficult to divide new from old
marketing theory, and marketing from other