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 su ch compliance, than buyers who are not dependent on their suppliers. T his well-known result is qualified in this research by the argument th at the dependence-compliance relationship is moderated by the level of relational norms present in the exchange relationship. Consistent wit h the research hypotheses, results from a scenario-based experiment wi th 147 purchasing managers show that the positive main effect of depen dence on compliance only holds under-conditions of high relational nor ms. In low relational norm-based relationships, dependence does not in crease compliance. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.