Buyer-seller partnerships in business markets: towards an integrated approach

While both academics and practitioners have demonstrated interest in buyer-seller partnerships, extant studies lack consistency and are often built on the basis of a single underlying theory, model or explanatory paradigm, which results in competing explanations of partnerships and which leaves the understanding of the phenomenon rather fragmented. This article contributes to theory on the nature of buyer-seller partnerships by reviewing contemporary literature and integrating several theoretical approaches into a joint framework for studying partnerships. In addition, an extended definition of a partnership is proposed, several research gaps are outlined and directions for future research are suggested.