Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Relationship Marketing: A Meta-Analysis

TLDR

Relationship marketing is a prominent business strategy, yet empirical studies show mixed results despite strong evidence that it generally improves performance. The study aims to guide managers and researchers by synthesizing empirical research on relationship marketing in a meta‑analytic framework. The authors employ a meta‑analytic approach to aggregate and analyze existing relationship marketing studies. The meta‑analysis reveals that relationship investment strongly boosts seller objective performance, with relationship quality being the most influential factor and commitment the least, and shows that relationship marketing is more effective when relationships are critical to customers and built with individuals rather than firms, thereby explaining prior mixed findings.

Abstract

Relationship marketing (RM) has emerged as one of the dominant mantras in business strategy circles, though RM investigations often yield mixed results. To help managers and researchers improve the effectiveness of their efforts, the authors synthesize RM empirical research in a meta-analytic framework. Although the fundamental premise that RM positively affects performance is well supported, many of the authors' findings have significant implications for research and practice. Relationship investment has a large direct effect on seller objective performance, which implies that additional meditated pathways may explain the impact of RM on performance. Objective performance is influenced most by relationship quality (a composite measure of relationship strength) and least by commitment. The results suggest also that RM is more effective when relationships are more critical to customers (e.g., service offerings, channel exchanges, business markets) and built with an individual person rather than a selling firm (which partially explains the mixed effects between RM and performance reported in previous studies).