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. 2020 Mar 6;12066:67–78. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-44999-5_6

Table 3.

Summary of main themes and related relational capabilities

Theme Description Relational capabilities
Goal congruency In B2B relationships, partners work together towards reaching a common goal [21–24]. The level of goal congruency refers to the possibility for both firms to achieve their goals simultaneously [25]. According to Cuevas, Julkunen and Gabrielsson (2015), goal congruency can be viewed as a prerequisite for developing relationships of trust. If partnerships are goal congruent, the firms will view joint action as mutually beneficial [26]

(a) Establish shared relationship vision and goals;

(b) Establish organisational vision and goals;

(c) Developing partnering strategy;

(d) Identify potential partners;

(e) Uphold external reputation;

(f) Attract complementary partners; and

(g) Obtain market knowledge
Trust Trust is widely associated with successful B2B relationships. Cooperation between partners, as well as the willingness for future collaboration, can arise directly from a strong relationship of trust. Conversely, conflict and uncertainty can be seen as a direct consequence of lack of trust [27, 28]

(a) Establish trustworthiness through behaviour;

(b) Assign boundary spanner;

(c) Measure relationship performance;

(d) Create and sustain unique value offering;

(e) Balance investment in relationships;

(f) Asses relationship risk; and

(g) Manage intellectual property
Collaboration B2B relationships are increasingly involving the sharing of resources, allowing firms to create and share mutual benefits [29]. Firms with complementary capabilities and expertise are connected, providing the opportunity for mutually complementary action in pursuit of a common goal [30]

(a) Interpret and contextualise partner diversity;

(b) Understand partner requirements;

(c) Identify mutual opportunities;

(d) Adapt to relationship;

(e) Create joint knowledge; and

(f) Leverage external resources
Flexibility B2B relationships are becoming increasingly agile and adaptive as they have the need to support faster and more flexible responses to constantly changing customer needs. Due to the dynamic business environment, B2B relationships need to be resilient and anti-fragile in order to display self-organising, flexible qualities that are capable of reconfiguring and overcoming shocks and disruptions [2]

(a) Maintain adaptable and flexible organisational structure;

(b) Enable product/process experimentation;

(c) Encourage interdisciplinary knowledge;

(d) Enable individual reflective capacity;

(e) Allocate internal resources to relationship;

(f) Balance relationship portfolios; and

(g) Establish contracting policy
Learning Knowledge and data is created and exchanged between partners, offering various opportunities for firms to learn and increase their own internal knowledge. Firms must be able to integrate new data and knowledge within their systems and incorporate it into their internal processes [31]

(a) Manage internal tacit knowledge;

(b) Manage internal communication and information flow;

(c) Manage tacit knowledge between partners;

(d) Define communication channels between partners;

(e) Externalise data and information;

(f) Capture, store and retrieve data;

(g) Analyse data;

(h) Establish data exploitation strategy;

(i) Create data security architectures; and

(j) Determine relationship functional requirements