Until costs tear them apart: why do customers and suppliers set relational practices for the joint development of software projects?

In spite of the fact that academics and practitioners pay significant attention to developing long-term ties in industry, there is little emphasis placed on the benefits stemming from such ties, particularly on value creation. Our study analyzes perceived relationship value from the perspective of dyads consisting of one customer and one supplier working together, as well as its dynamic nature in business relationships. The analytical framework was developed from relationship marketing theories with roots in economics, political science, organization sciences, sociology, social psychology and law. A qualitative study was conducted by way of in-depth interviews with representatives from 14 customer-supplier dyads in the prominent software sector established in Southern Brazil, The software sector was chosen because of its economic representativity, its viability for the application of relationship marketing phenomena to the context and because of other studies on the matter in this sector. The findings suggest that the acquisition of enterprise software brings benefits of many types to both customers and suppliers, and that, depending on the relational ties, such benefits can be further improved.