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Why is service quality not enough to retain clients, and customer satisfaction not a guarantee of repeat business? This is one of the most frequently asked questions amongst researchers and practitioners. Several scholars and managers suggest that relationship quality (RQ) is replacing service quality and/or customer satisfaction as a key source of competitive advantage and superior performance. Despite the crucial role that relationship managers play in building business-to-business (B2B) RQ, very little research has looked at the key constructs of B2B RQ from a people-based approach. This study aims at contributing to a better understanding of B2B RQ. By focusing on relational drivers, this work responds to the lack of research on the interactive characteristic of RQ, i.e. buyer-seller interactions primarily in a person-to-person communication. This study suggests theoretical and managerial guidelines regarding the social level in the governance of business relationships, which should be particularly useful to researchers and managers, as well as to graduate and post-graduate students in Management and Marketing fields.

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Armando Luís Vieira is assistant professor at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, and holds a PhD degree in business and management from the University of Nottingham, UK. Before joining the academic community, he worked for more than a decade in the banking sector, namely in the commercial area for both individual and corporate clients.

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