Relationship marketing and distribution channels

The interest of practitioners and academics in channel relationship management has shifted from corporate chan-nel structures and relationships in conventional channels governed by use of power to relationships between inde-pendent firms involving contractual and normative control mechanisms. In this article, we identify several f ctors leading to this change of interest, propose a scheme for classifying channel relationship research based on control mechanisms, andsuggest areas forfuture research involving the use of contractual and normative control mechanisms in conventional channel relationships. Channel management research and practice has long recognized the importance of managing relationships be-tween the people and firms performing distribution func-tions-functions that create value bymaking products and services available to customers in an appropriate form at the right place and time. However, the growing interest in relationship marketing suggests a shift in the nature of general marketplace transactions from discrete to rela-tional exchanges----~om exchanges between parties with no past history and no future to exchanges between parties who have an exchange history and plans for future inter-actions. As Macneil (1980, p. 60) indicates, pure discrete trans-actions are are in business exchanges. Almost all channel transactions have some r lational elements hat can be used to coordinate channel activities and manage relationship