Potential effects of psychological reactance and relationship proneness on relationships marketing programmes

This conceptual article presents the current criticisms to relationship marketing and important concepts developed in marketing and psychology to understand consumer reactance toward services packaged as formal contracts. A first part presents the numerous questions that researches are raising about the willingness of people to commit to services and presents four key variables to understand the customer’s willingness to enter and develop business relationships. Indeed, psychological reactance and relationship proneness are introduced as interesting concepts to revisit the relationship marketing paradigm and to better understand trust and commitment. A second section develops an integrative conceptual framework of the different concepts introduced in this research. We then conclude with avenues for future research and potential managerial implications.