Alternative explanations of business-to-business relationships: The relational case between web-based companies and traditional channel partners in South Korea

This study attempts to model the development of business-to-business (B2B) relationships by examining the simultaneous effects of cooperation, communication, satisfaction, trust and commitment. The author builds on recent advances in B2B marketing theory and assesses the relationships between these five identified variables. Three alternative models are also considered and compared to the proposed research model. The study uses data from 184 web-based companies and their partners to examine B2B relationships models. The findings show that the proposed research model outperforms other models in terms of model-data fit indexes. Management implications of these findings and further directions for research are then offered.