The role of foreign customer influences in building relationships with US exporting SMEs

Despite the growing importance of relationship management in both academic and practitioner circles, little attention has been focused on the dynamics of international business relationships. This article examines the effect of foreign customer influence strategies on building business relationships with exporting manufacturers, based on information obtained from a sample of US small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It was found that there is a low to moderate application of mediated influence strategies by overseas customers, with reward- and coercion-based influence strategies more frequently used, and that non-mediated influence strategies are relatively more commonly employed, with those relying on the expert status of the partner (e.g. in knowledge of foreign markets, etc) being the most popular. The combined effect of mediated and non-mediated influence strategies, and the degree to which they are exercised, seems to significantly affect various dimensions of the exporter-importer working relationship. Based on the nature and intensity of foreign customer influence strategies, the study helps to identify four types of exporting firms-inert complacents, problematic satisfiers, collaborative aimers, and hazardous agitators-each characterized by an idiosyncratic relationship profile composed of greater or less than average use of mediated and non-mediated influence strategies by their customers. Several managerial implications are derived from the study findings-managers are encouraged to understand and take an active role in designing the types and levels of influence overseas customers may seek to use, and to realise that financial transactions are inseparable from behavioural interactions in such partnerships. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.