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Relationship significance is defined by the authors as: “the influence of business relationships on the focal firm’s survival or growth, ” which draws attention to the kinds of benefits or functions that relations can provide for a firm. These are, in critical realist terms, the powers and tendencies of relations and, on the negative side, the burdens or liabilities of relations. It is argued that the causes of relationship significance are for the most part left unidentified. This I find hard to agree with. It seems to me that a lot of IMP research, both empirical and conceptual has gone into the role of relations and networks and could be linked to and translated into a critical realist perspective. Empirical work includes that stemming from the IMP2 study of relations and connected relations and their impact (e.g. Wiley et al 2006), which is referred to by the authors, or the work of Walter et al (2001) and Walter et al (2003) who have undertaken empirical and conceptual work on the functions and value of business relations and reviewed previous research on this topic. Conceptually the functions and value of relations and networks have been linked to the actor bonds, activity links, resource ties and schema couplings among firms involved in business relations (e.g. Anderson et al 1994, Hakansson and Snehota 1995, Wiley et al 2006). I would have thought that the significance of a relation can be understood in terms of these dimensions and their effects on th