Correspondence: Robert C. Fink, Department of Business Administration, Worcester State College, 486 Chandler Street, Worcester, Massachusetts 01886, USA. E-mail: rfink@worcester.edu

¹is an associate professor of marketing at Worcester State College and earned his DBA from the School of Management, Boston University in 1995. Dr Fink's research interests focus on customer–supplier relationships and marketing and sales strategies. He has published papers in Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Industrial and Corporate Change, the Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing and the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice. He has over 20 years of sales and marketing experience in the manufacturing, publishing and information technology industries.

²is Professor of Marketing and International Business at the Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University. He earned his PhD in marketing from the Krannert Graduate School of Management of Purdue University in 1981. Dr James' research interests are primarily in the fields of advertising and strategic management. His research has appeared in marketing and management journals including the Journal of Marketing Research, the Strategic Management Journal and the Journal of Advertising Research.

³is Professor of Strategy and Policy, and chairs that department at the School of Management at Boston University. He earned a PhD in Strategic Management from the Krannert School at Purdue University in 1974. Dr Hatten is an author of the books Reaching for the Knowledge Edge, published by AMACOM in 2001, Strategic Management: Analysis and Action and Effective Strategic Management, published in 1987 and 1988, respectively. He has published papers on strategic management in Harvard Business Review, The Journal of Industrial Economics, Strategic Management Journal, Long Range Planning and the Academy of Management Journal, among others. He is also the author of more than 100 case studies in the Strategic Management field.

Received 29 November 2008; Revised 29 November 2008; Published online 16 February 2009.

Abstract

This paper investigates factors (exchange performance outcomes, perceptions of technological uncertainty and resource availability uncertainty) that are associated with customer choices to engage in relational exchanges with suppliers of process control equipment, and how these factors differ for small-, medium- and large-sized customers in the paper industry. The study involves a survey of 372 paper mills that investigates how these factors differ across differently sized customers. The results indicate that the variables associated with relational exchange choices are different for small-, medium- and large-sized customers, and suggest that marketing managers should develop alternative sales and marketing strategies and product and service offerings to effectively create relational exchanges with different segments of customers.