Business Relationships and Subcontractors ’ Capabilities : a Portfolio

We aim to understand how the customer relationship portfolio of a subcontractor changes as the subcontractor evolves its capabilities. While this line of research is under-investigated in the literature on business relationships, we believe that it is a crucial aspect to gaining new insights about how competitive advantages are developed in industrial markets. To address this research question we studied the customer relationship portfolio of 62 subcontractors located in the mechanical industrial district of Pordenone (North East Italy). We used univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) as the appropriate statistical technique to test the potential associations between the measures involved in the study. From the results we derived three propositions that reveal the dynamics between subcontractors’ capabilities and their business relationship portfolios. Academic and original managerial contributions have been proposed and discussed.