The primary purpose of the present paper is to critically evaluate the extant literature on relational exchange, a fundamental driver of buyer‐seller relationship management in the twenty‐first century. Toward that goal, a meta‐analytic approach is employed to determine specific conditions under which relational exchange may have a greater or lesser impact on B2B relationship outcomes.
The data were extracted from a multitude of effects in the large body of empirical research investigating relational exchange within the business and allied social sciences research. Then, a meta‐analytic methodology using multiple regression was used to assess the in/congruity across relational exchange effects.
The findings indicate that the association between relational exchange and outcome variables is highly dependent on three factors: how relational exchange is operationally defined, who evaluates the relationship (upstream firm versus downstream firm and high‐status employee versus low‐status employee within the organizational hierarchy), and the data source (from a single industry or from multiple industries).
Despite the extensive attention afforded to relational exchange, an overarching limitation is the paucity of empirical attention as evidenced by the diminutive effects tested in the meta‐analysis. The meta‐analysis is also limited by the selective set of predictor variables that may account for variance in the effect size. Additional effects are needed to assess the conspicuous absence of potentially significant factors underlying B2B relationships (i.e. organization size and relational monitoring by the upstream firm).
The findings offer insights for researchers and practitioners who deal with dyadic relationships in B2B exchanges. One of the most important implications of this meta‐analysis is the need to clarify the operational definition of relational exchange. The disparity across measures and measurements of relational exchange highlights the need for greater clarity in defining the seminal factors that underlie this important managerial direction.
The findings of this study point to the inconsistencies that exist in the current literature with regard to the operational definition of relational exchange, as well as the study designs employed by different researchers. These inconsistencies have led to inconclusive results across effects. This research challenges B2B researchers and practitioners alike to reconsider the presumed benefits of relational exchange in inter‐organizational relationship management.
