Relationship Marketing: A Synthesis of Three Research Arenas

The relationship marketing literature has offered substantial insights, but also has been confounding. Different research streams use ideosyncratic definitions and terminology, and only tangentially merge as an integrative framework. An organizing framework is presented here to synthesize the three primary literature streams: services marketing, business-tobusiness marketing, and channels of distribution. Among the observations drawn from this endeavor are: there is no commonly accepted definition of relationship marketing, there is an absence of research on tangible consumer products, relationship marketing is reserved for important exchange partners, other marketing efforts can be mistaken as relationship marketing, and a modest amount of research has addressed the impact of relationalism on performance outcomes.