Expanding the marriage metaphor in understanding long‐term business relationships

Purpose – The paper seeks to enrich current and future research on the topic of long‐term business relationships within organizational networks through expansion of the marriage metaphor. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the relationship marketing literature as well as incorporating sociological literature dealing with marriage and the family, specifically with respect to inter‐family working relationships. An extended family metaphor is proposed as a more appropriate metaphor for firms involved in network relationships. The paper is divided into three sections. The first contains a re‐conceptualization of the original stages developed by Dwyer et al. (1987). Next, non‐phase elements of these relationships are discussed. Finally, areas for future research building on this metaphor are suggested. Findings – The extended family metaphor implies several interesting opportunities for future research, including investing the compensatory nature of relationships and specific factors that might impact relationship discussion. Practical implications – This paper brings our conceptual thinking more in line with organizational reality, namely that organizations are more likely involved in dyadic relationships embedded in a network of inter‐relationships. Using an extended family metaphor highlights additional stressors on the relationships, suggesting areas that need attention in an effort to maintain the relationship. It also more clearly focuses on the dynamic of interactions outside the dyad and how these affect the dyadic relationship. Originality/value – The marriage metaphor has been a catalyst for a wide variety of managerially significant research efforts. This extension of the metaphor to include the extended family may do the same.