Understanding influence and value creation in buyer-supplier relationship

The purpose of this paper is to examine how social exchange theory (SET) might increase our understanding about buyer-supplier relationships. Drawing on SET, we seek the answer to the following research question: What is the social exchange mechanism of influence and value creation in the buyer-supplier relationship? We will utilize the SET constructs to explore key mechanisms of a relationship between buyer and supplier, and present a framework about social exchange mechanism of influence and value creation. We illustrate the SET constructs and the framework by an empirical example of a strategic and complex buyer-supplier relationship.