How relational norms affect compliance in industrial buying

Buyers who are dependent on their suppliers are move likely to comply with supplier requests, despite the potential costs associated with such compliance, than buyers who are not dependent on their suppliers. This well-known result is qualified in this research by the argument that the dependence-compliance relationship is moderated by the level of relational norms present in the exchange relationship. Consistent with the research hypotheses, results from a scenario-based experiment with 147 purchasing managers show that the positive main effect of dependence on compliance only holds under-conditions of high relational norms. In low relational norm-based relationships, dependence does not increase compliance. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.