Partnering and traditional relationships in business marketing: An introduction to the special issue

Many theoretical and empirical articles about channel relationships have been published in the literature. However, Weitz and Jap (1995) highlight the lack of systematic research on the specific activities that comprise a partnering relationship in the business market. This Special issue represents the programmatic work of many scholars who have addressed this question using a case study approach. In this introduction, background information about the project is provided along with specification of the research domain. The outcome of the issue is the development of a grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin, 1994) of partnership structure as defined by the activities of successful partnering firms in contrast to traditional/typical interfirm relationships. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.