Life‐cycle Patterns in Industrial Buyer‐Seller Partnerships

Abstract

The use of a life‐cycle framework is explored as a means of describing the evolution of partnership relationships between industrial buyers and sellers. Based on case studies of eight manufacturing firms, industrial buyer‐seller partnerships evolve through four stages: development, commitment, integration and dissolution. In addition to exploring a “traditional” life‐cycle pattern, case studies are used to illustrate and support examples of variations on the traditional partnership life‐cycle pattern. The life‐cycle analogy is useful to both practitioners and theorists in developing, understanding and influencing the patterns which industrial buyer‐seller partnerships may follow.