Outcome-Based and Behavior-Based Coordination Efforts in Channel Relationships

Abstract

Supplier personnel often emphasize outcomes and behaviors in personal communications with distributors, thereby signaling important product-market objectives and advocating specific distributor actions. The authors’ purpose is to enhance the understanding of outcome- and behavior-based coordination efforts of supplier personnel in relationships with distributors. The authors use primary data from a national survey of industrial distributors to test the conceptual framework. Empirical results suggest that a supplier's use of such coordination efforts is affected by environmental uncertainty, supplier familiarity with distributor markets, supplier replaceability, and supplier resource constraints, as well as by distributor experience and distributor value added.