“What’s it really worth?” A meta-analysis of customer-perceived relationship value in B2B markets

Abstract

Purpose Research on customer-perceived relationship value (CPRV) in business-to-business (B2B) markets has flourished over the past two decades. This paper aims to meta-analytically take stock of this research stream. It creates a comprehensive overview of the theoretical bases of CPRV research and establishes CPRV in its nomological network. The latter includes relationship benefits and sacrifices, offer quality, trust, switching costs, satisfaction, commitment, loyalty and salience of alternatives. Meaningful boundary conditions of the links to and from CPRV emerge from this research. Design/methodology/approach To locate suitable primary studies for inclusion in this meta-analysis, a comprehensive literature search was performed. Selection criteria ensured that only suitable B2B samples were included. Meta-analytical random and mixed-effects models were performed on a sample of k = 83 independent data sets from 94 primary publications, with a total n = 22,305. Findings All constructs are strongly related to CPRV in the expected direction, except for switching costs and salience of alternatives with a moderate relationship and relationship sacrifices with a non-significant mean association. Firm type (manufacturing, non-manufacturing), key informant role (purchaser, non-purchaser), supplier offering type (goods, services) and measurement approach (reflective, formative) function as boundary conditions in the moderation analysis. Originality/value This study is one of the very rare meta-analyses that draws exclusively from B2B marketing primary studies. It summarizes and solidifies the current theoretical and empirical knowledge on CPRV in business markets. The novel inclusion of boundary conditions offers additional insight over primary studies and makes for interesting new research directions.