The impact of (dis)similarities in personality traits on conflict attributes in buyer-seller relationships

摘要

Buyer and seller relationships have become an integral part of business-to-business operating strategies over the past twenty years (Wilson, 1995; Zhou, 2007). In any relationship conflicts may arise. Conflict refers to a process that begins when one party perceives that the other has frustrated, or is about to frustrate, some concern (Plank 2006). Many studies havereported evidence of the negative impact of conflict on various aspects of buyer-sellerrelationships, such as trust (Kwon, 2004), loyalty (Plank and Newell, 2007), and relationship development (Plank et al, 2006). Conflict is a multi-dimensional concept (Amason, 1997; Hunger, 1976; Jehn, 1994, 1995, 1997; Kumar, 1995), with various conflict attributes, such as conflict frequency, conflict intensity, conflict cognitiveness (work related disagreement) and conflict affectiveness (interpersonal incompatibilities or problems among persons). The extant literature does not provide decisive answers to the question how we can explain conflict attributes in buyer-seller relationships.