Title: The joint effect of buyer-supplier interaction and service complexity on B2B buyer satisfaction

Authors: Rafael Teixeira; Ely Laureano Paiva; Celso Augusto De Matos; Patrick Vesel

Addresses: Department of Supply Chain and Information Management, School of Business, College of Charleston, 5 Liberty St., Suite 300, Charleston, SC 29464, USA ' Program in Business Administration, Fundação Getúlio Vargas – FGV/EAESP, Av. 9 de Julho, 2029 3rd Floor, São Paulo – SP 01313-902, Brazil ' Unisinos Business School, Unisinos University, Av. Dr. Nilo Peçanha, 1600, Porto Alegre/RS 91330-002, Brazil ' BTC d.d., Šmartinska 152, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Abstract: This study investigates the influence of interaction frequency between service providers and business-to-business (B2B) buyers on buyer satisfaction, taking into account technological services of varying degrees of complexity. Simply put, interaction frequency is moderated by service complexity. Higher levels of service complexity require more interactions between service providers and B2B buyers so that they can exchange information and prepare for service co-production. Data were collected from 228 B2B buyers of telecommunications services in Brazil. The results show that buyer satisfaction is associated with low and medium levels of service complexity and interaction frequency; however, high levels of these variables were not found.

Keywords: service complexity; interaction frequency; business-to-business; B2B; technological services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2020.110368

International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 2020 Vol.26 No.6, pp.455 - 477

Accepted: 07 Feb 2018
Published online: 16 Oct 2020 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article