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.