Complaint Management and Suppliers' Engagement in Long-term Relationships: A Conceptual Model based on Fairness Theory

Abstract

Although the importance of buyer-supplier relationship has long been focused in literature of business and management, little is known about complaint management and its impacts in the context of business-to-business. This study tries to address this gap in the literature by investigating the impacts of complaint management and perceived fairness on the relationship of suppliers’ long-term orientation towards the buyer firm.

Based on the profound review of the literature, a conceptual model will be developed and hypotheses will be suggested. We use fairness theory as the theoretical grounding for this research and develop a conceptual model that suggests examining the effects of fairness (i.e. procedural, distributive, interaction, and information justice) on trust, commitment and conflict. We further suggest examining the impact of these relational characteristics on the long-term orientation, cooperation, and opportunism as well as examining the moderating role of relationship quality on the link between perceived fairness and relational characteristics.