What is dark about the dark-side of business relationships?

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Abstract

Over the last decade or so, the term ‘dark-side’ in referring to business relationships has been increasingly used in academic discourse. Despite such a growth in the number of studies, relatively little critique has been offered among scholars. The fact that effectively managing the dark side of business relationships has potentially greater influence of contributing to inter-organizational success beyond more focus on the positive side necessitates an urgent critique surrounding ‘what is dark about the dark side of business relationships?’ Thus, we aim to provide an overview relating to the ‘dark side’ of business relationships in a quest to generate greater debate on the subject.

Introduction

Businesses spend significant amounts of time to build and maintain a host of relationships with their key stakeholders. Such efforts usually result in positive impact through increased trust, greater commitment and further relationship cooperation. These in turn often encourage parties to develop reciprocal norms that enhance value creation through continuous learning, interaction, as well as promoting psychological closeness and reciprocity (De Wulf et al., 2001, Palmatier et al., 2009). Thus, it is not surprising to see that much of the business-to-business literature has been devoted to enabling relational parties to invest in activities and strategies aimed at building positive relationships. However, in order to ensure overall success, investing in positive elements of relationships alone is not enough, as business partners must protect against detrimental perceptions, actions and behaviors (e.g. Anderson and Jap, 2005, Barnes, 2005, Blois, 2010, Fang et al., 2011, Gaski, 1984, Grayson and Ambler, 1999, Hibbard et al., 2001, John, 1984, Moorman et al., 1992, Villena et al., 2011).

In fact, research from behavioral science suggests that reducing the negative impacts of the dark-side within the relationship has greater influence on the success of business relationships than investing purely on the development of positive relationships (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Voks, 2001). The prominent role of the negative elements of business relationships has encouraged researchers over the past two decades to focus on this area. While most have only partially examined such negative elements, a few studies have been purely devoted to this subject (e.g. Gaski, 1984, John, 1984, Mooi and Frambach, 2012, Mysen et al., 2011).

Increased attention on the dark-side of relationships has helped to provide a greater understanding of the nature of business relations, which often require careful management. Knowing how negative relational elements impact on relationships is likely to prove useful for both academic and practitioners. With this aim, this introductory overview provides a critical discussion of ‘dark-side’ relationships and attempts to answer the question of what is dark about the dark-side? The introduction proceeds by a discussion of tolerable, irritating and intolerable dark-side relationships and some suggestions for future research are provided.

Section snippets

What is dark?

Despite the recent widespread use of the term ‘dark-side’ in business relationships, very little critique of the literature and this subject has been offered. The notion of a ‘dark side’ suggests ‘problems’, ‘challenges’, ‘difficulties’, and ‘drawbacks’ related to structural issues that exist in business relationships, such as size differences, or the imbalance of power; processes within business relationships, including creativity issues, capability development, changes in market dynamics; and

The tolerable dark-side

In our view, business relationships are not inherently good or bad but rather, relationships can produce both simultaneous bright and dark-side effects. Such dark-side effects in their early appearance may be useful if businesses are capable of effective learning. However, failure to learn and adapt within business relationships can allow for early conflict to appear (Ford, 1980). Being tolerable to such dark-side effects may therefore be essential for managers to realize in order for them to

Intolerable and irritating dark-side

Dark-side relationships are characterized by negative attitudes to conflict, high tension, severe conflict, and the deterioration of trust, commitment and cooperation. Severe conflict is a clear manifestation of dark-side relationships that are irritating, often costly, and cause increasing worries of opportunism. Within this literature, high levels of conflict can be detrimental, leading to reduced productivity, cooperation and performance (Finch et al., 2013, Massey and Dawes, 2007, Skarmeas,

Contributions to this special issue

The special issue consists of nine empirical papers from diverse business-to-business areas. Each paper provides fresh insights and adds new understandings to this area on dark-side relationships. With the aim to answer whether the dark personality trait, desire for control, manifests itself through control mechanisms in a manner detrimental to alliance performance; Musarra, Robson & Katsikeas (2016 – this issue) demonstrate that a focal firm's desire for control is positively associated with

Ibrahim Abosag is an Associate Professor in International Marketing at SOAS, University of London. His research interests include cross-cultural B2B, brand relationships, online marketing, and consumer boycotting behavior. Ibrahim has published in various academic journals including Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, International Business Review, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, Journal

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    Ibrahim Abosag is an Associate Professor in International Marketing at SOAS, University of London. His research interests include cross-cultural B2B, brand relationships, online marketing, and consumer boycotting behavior. Ibrahim has published in various academic journals including Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, International Business Review, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, Journal of TQM, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal and others.

    Dorothy Ai-wan Yen is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Brunel University London. She graduated from the University of Leeds with a PhD in Marketing. Her research focuses mainly on the examination of cross-cultural interactions at both b2b and b2c levels. She specializes in the business relationships between Anglo–Saxon suppliers and Chinese buyers and has a particular research interest in the Chinese relational notion of guanxi. She has published in journals such as Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of General Management, Total Quality Management, The Marketing Review and Studies in Higher Education.

    Bradley R. Barnes is the Assistant Dean of Research and Professor of International Management & Marketing at Sheffield Business School. Professor Barnes has over ten years international experience working with companies to promote their products and services in Europe, the Middle East and Far East. He has published in a range of practitioner and academic journals including Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of International Marketing, International Business Review, International Marketing Review, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management and International Journal of Advertising. His current work focuses on international business relationships, cross cultural research between Chinese influenced economies and the West, the internationalization process, as well as the Chinese notion of ‘guanxi’ and its influence on business performance.

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