The Structure of Relationship Commitment in Interfirm Relationships

Abstract

Relationship commitment refers to the extent to which a firn is dedicated to a close and enduring relationship with another firn (Kim and Frazier 1997). It takes many forms both in terms of motives that manifest attitude to preserve the relationship and behaviour that demonstrates partners' interest in the relationship. We argue that despite the obvious importance of commitment, existing conceptualisations are not sufficiently comprehensive. We propose a multidimensional conceptualization of commitment together with hypotheses about the interrelationships among the different dimensions.