Abstract:
A finn's competitive advantage can be created through developing and maintaining long-term
effective relationships with customers. To achieve successful long-term business relationships,
partners need to develop and maintain a high degree of relationship quality. Although the
importance and benefits of high quality relationships are widely recognised, little research has
been undertaken to examine the major factors that impact on relationship quality between
exporters and importers.
Internationalisation theory suggests that culturally distant exporters need to allocate significant
resources to relationship building activities with their foreign customers in order to enhance
mutual understanding and to help reduce the inherent uncertainties in international markets.
Therefore, enhancing the understanding of, and adaptation to, differences in culture in foreign
countries helps exporters reduce the "distance" between parties in export relationships.
Consequently, it can be argued that exporters who are sensitive to their partners' cultures will
face fewer barriers to effective communication and are more likely to achieve long-lasting
successful business relationships.
This research examined the impact of two cultural factors, i.e., cultural sensmvrty and
ethnocentrism, on business relationship quality between developing country-based exporters and
their foreign importers. Also, it explored the relationship between relationship quality and its
outcome, i.e., export performance. A random sample of 297 exporting firms in Vietnam was
surveyed to empirically test the theoretical model. The results indicated that the model had an
acceptable fit to the data and all of the hypotheses were supported. Implications for business
firms and directions for future research were also addressed.
