Assessment of Fruit Producers’ Relationships Based on Quality Factors of these Relationships

Ványi, Noémi

Keywords: cluster analysis, quality factors, supply chain, Q11, Q12, Q13

Even though research on business relationships considers the quality of these relationships to be the basis of a successful cooperation, little is known about this area. This study aims to reveal the fruit producers’ business relationships depending on the quality of the relationships and whether there are any significant differences between producer-buyer and producer-supplier cooperations depending on quality factors. The survey was carried out between 2013 and 2014 and included opinions from 223 producers in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County. The producers provided opinions on their buyer and supplier cooperation depending on the quality of the relationship. The results suggest that there are clear separations among producers’ opinions on their buyers and suppliers: some producers gave clearly negative responses while others provided clearly positive opinions on their relationships, but there were producers who gave nuanced or complex answers (which were not clearly positive or negative). It is concluded that positive opinions are the most likely to occur among producers’ organisations/ producers’ groups, as distribution channel clusters. This is mainly due to the trust, commitment and friendly relationshipbased cooperation where conflicts are not common among partners and they reciprocally accept their interdependence. The comparison of opinions from the buyers and suppliers suggests that there is no sharp contrast among the producers’ assessments. Therefore, the opinions of producers’ business relationships are shaped by a general attitude. Because of the research, it has been clearly concluded that producers have different opinions of their relationships depending on factors of relationship quality in certain distribution channels. The relationship between each buyer relationship assessment (opinions) and performance could be an area of further research.

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