RELATIONSHIP QUALITY AS INTER- ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS FEATURE
RELATIONSHIP QUALITY AS INTER- ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS FEATURE

Summary/Abstract: This study aims to recognize the specificity of relationship quality in an inter-organizational context, especially concerning its importance and feature type (first-order or second-order). Methodologically, this paper follows the qualitative approach, specifically 18 in-depth interviews were used to acquire the data from two groups of software development firms – 3 software developers and their 15 strategic partners (i.e., cooperators or coopetitors). Obtained results suggest that relationship quality plays a key role in inter-organizational relationships, including both their establishment and long term exploitation. Moreover, it seems to be the second-order feature as directly resulting from partners’ behaviors and actions undertaken under the relationship. As an original value, this paper introduces empirical findings of inter-organizational relationship quality in the software industry. In turn, using marketing and strategic management underpinnings, our study presents inter-organizational relationship quality in a different perspective than in quality management literature, where quality is usually presented as a first-order relational feature.

• Details
• Contents