15. From Business Remains to Reactivated Relationships

Over the years, research has covered many different aspects of business relationships; for example, there are streams investigating relationship initiation (e.g., Edvardsson et al. 2008), relationship development (e.g., Dwyer et al. 1987), critical episodes in relationships (e.g., Gidhagen 2002), relationship termination (e.g., Alajoutsijärvi et al. 2000), as well as network effects of relationships (e.g., Håkansson and Snehota 1995). However, there are few studies that focus on the time after a business relationship is terminated. A practical explanation may be the difficulty to study something ‘that is not,’ given, for instance, the reluctance to discuss any termination processes, or even problems of finding anyone with memories of the past. Another reason is of course that there may be considered little rationale in analysing something that is no more. However, this no-longer-existing business relationship may indeed be turned into ‘something’ again—once terminated, and later reactivated. In such a situation, the former relationship, its termination and also the time between termination and reactivation are all important aspects to consider.