Understanding the Relationship Marketing Process of Family Businesses
in the Industrial (B2B) Sector
Dr Wing Lam
Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship
The Lancashire Business School,
University of Central Lancashire, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 2HE, UK
Tel: + (44) 1772 894640 E-mail: wlam@uclan.ac.uk
Type of Paper: Refereed Research Paper
Objective: This paper develops a theoretical and methodological framework that attempts to shed new light
on the process of relationship marketing of family business in an industrial (B2B) sector in a Chinese context.
Prior Work: There is a lack of focus on the marketing process in the family business context, in particular the
role of family in establishing and maintaining the business-to-business (B2B) buyer-seller relationship. This
paper is aimed at exploring the role of family in the process of relationship marketing in a Chinese context. It
is argued that a social embeddedness perspective has the potential to shed some light on the complex social
process of building and maintaining the buyer-seller relationships.
Design/Methodology/Approach: This study was conducted through a longitudinal, interpretive, reflexive
qualitative fieldwork. A total of 12 Chinese family businesses (6 pairs buyer-seller firms) and 78 informants
participated in the multi-stage fieldwork over a period of 8 years.
Findings : Contrary to the popular belief that companies begin to build up relationships with their existing
customers with the aim of encouraging repeat purchases, the findings suggest that it is the ongoing
negotiation of the personal relationship that gives rise to the business relationship. In other words, personal
relationships can be both lubricants and catalysts of business relationships. Secondly, relationships between
buyer and seller firms are both emotional and rational. Decisions such as price, quality, reliability and
consistency are also key factors in maintaining the business relationship between the firms. Thirdly, business
owners and their family members are well aware of the importance of the personal and business relationships
that they work hard to ensure that the relationships is kept in the family.
Implications: Our in-depth study helps to unravel the complex web of elements that shape the relationship
marketing process in family businesses. The findings of analysis challenge the contribution of the studies
which tend to measure the impact of relationship marketing by adopting a cause-effect, instantaneous
approach. The result of the findings question the prevailing view which sees family as an irrational element
which gives rise to many family business issues.
Value: This paper contributes to conceptual and practical knowledge in advancing understanding of the
relationship marketing process in a Chinese context, and has potential implications for a wider cultural and
institutional context. In addition, it contributes to the general knowledge of relationship marketing in the B2B
sector. In particular, the result adds to our understanding of the essential role the family plays in the process
of relationship marketing in a family business. Secondly, it helps to shed new light on the complex process of
formal and informal interaction between buyer and seller firms in a B2B sector. A better understanding of the
complex process is particularly important to all the parties involved in the process, including the business
owners, family members, and non-kin employees. Furthermore, a longitudinal qualitative approach, with
informants from both buyer-seller firms, plus multi-respondents from each firm, is particularly useful in
investigating the complex, dynamic relationship marketing process in a family business context.
Key Words: Chinese Family Business, Business-to-Business (B2B) Sector, Relationship Marketing, Social
Embeddedness, Longitudinal Study, Personal Relationships
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Abstract
This paper develops a theoretical and methodological framework that attempts to shed new light on the
process of relationship marketing in an industrial (B2B), family business context. Relationship marketing
involves both formal and informal social interactions with multi contact points between firms. By adopting a
longitudinal study, using the case of six-pairs of Chinese Family Business, the findings of this study suggest
that relationship marketing is a socially embedded process that personal relationships can be both lubricants
and catalysts of business relationships. Furthermore, family business owners and their families appreciate the
importance of personal relationships and they work hard to ensure that relationships are kept in the family.
Introduction
In the last three decades, China’s continuous economic growth has attracted attention to Chinese Family
Businesses within and outside China (Tsang, 2001; Davies & Ma, 2003; Yan & Sorenson, 2004; Au & Kwan,
2009). Interestingly, despite the increasing volume of research, little attention has been paid to the area of
marketing in the context of Chinese Family Business. The same can be said about family business in general
– little work is conducted in the area of marketing and family business. Marketing as an academic discipline is
a relatively new concept and an universally accepted definition is yet to emerge (Harker & Egan, 2006).
Nevertheless few can challenge the assertion that the ultimate function of marketing is to attract and maintain
customers (Gummesson, 1987; Grönroos, 1991). As such it can be argued that marketing is an indispensable
function of all forms of business, simply because no business can survive without customers. A family
business, regardless of its definition, form, objectives or founders’ ethnicity, is a business and therefore has to
perform marketing activities in order to survive, grow and prosper. Yet the two bodies of literature on
marketing and family business have not been integrated. Drawing upon marketing, relationship marketing and
family business theories, supported by a social embeddedness approach, this paper aims to shed some light
on the complex and intertwined relationship between marketing and Chinese Family Business in the
Business-to-business (B2B) sector.
Following this introduction, the paper is presented in seven parts. It commences with the discussion of the
Chinese Family Business and family business literature by summarising the antecedents and debates of
family business literature. It is then followed by discussion of the history and development of marketing and
relationship marketing theories, in particular its relation to the B2B sector. The paper then continues by
discussing the connection between relationship marketing and family business before describing the
methodological framework of the project. Findings are then presented and discussed before concluding the
paper with implications for practice and research.
Family business – antecedents and debates
Studies of Chinese Family Businesses can be classified into two main categories. The majority of Chinese
Family Business literature focuses on the characteristics of the businesses, mainly on their ownership
structure and management style (Lim, 1983; Lee, 1996; Carney & Gedajlovic, 2002; Wall et al., 2009; Zhang
& Ma, 2009). According to the studies, the most common characteristics that are shared by these Chinese
Family Businesses include: single family ownership, that is, the ownership and the power of management in
the family business is controlled by one single family (Westhead et al., 2002); paternalism management style
accompanied by lack of formal system of regulation (Heller, 1991); small scale businesses - most family
business in Chinese society are of rather small scale and the number of employees hired is very limited (Orru,
1997); nepotism –by the time Chinese family businesses grows to the extent that the business activities are
beyond the owner’s control, he/she will usually appoint family members or relatives to key posts of the
organisation to help him/her to deal with the daily management (Wong, 1985). According to these studies,
these characteristics of the Chinese family business are a consequence of the ‘unique’ Chinese culture.
Another category of the Chinese family business literature has focused on the impact of family on the
business. Studies argue that the family influences Chinese business in different aspects including, sources of
finance, human resources, market opportunity and social support (Hamilton & Jai, 1990; Brown, 1995;
Palanca, 1995; Haley et al., 1998; Chung, 2001; Zapalska & Edwards, 2001; Au & Kwan, 2009). Some
studies have taken one step further by exploring family values in Chinese culture and how this influences
Chinese family businesses. Interestingly, despite the large number of studies, there is a lack of attention to
marketing processes in Chinese family business, nor is there any study that focuses on the interplay between
family business members and marketing activities. In light of this, it is necessary to draw upon family
business literature hoping to shed some light in this unresolved area of interest.
Like studies of Chinese Family Business, studies of family businesses can be classified into two main
categories – the impact of the family on business and the characteristics and/or behaviour of family
businesses. Studies that focus on the impact of the family on business argue that the family is a key factor
that affects business in different ways. Family influences entrepreneurs’ personality characteristics (Collins &
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Moore, 1964) and entrepreneurial behaviour (Dyer, 1992; Aldrich & Cliff, 2003; Kellermanns et al., 2008). A
family’s involvement in the entrepreneur’s start-up activities, employment of family members in the
entrepreneurial firm and the involvement of family members in ownership and management are the key focus
of these studies (Davis & Harveston, 1998; Galbraith, 2003; Olson et al., 2003; Klein et al., 2005). A common
theme in these studies is that they adopt a view of family as an external resource that can be drawn upon.
They argue that family is an attribute in the creation, survival, performance and sustainability of family
businesses (Olson et al., 2003; Stewart, 2003). However individuals do not only respond to their environment.
They also interact with their environment (Weick, 1995). It is therefore inappropriate to view family as a factor
that exists “out there” to influence the business. Instead family and business interact with each other. The
view that family and business are interwoven is increasingly recognised (Kelly et al., 2000; Aldrich & Cliff,
2003). Aldrich and Cliff (2003) proposed a family embeddedness perspective which argues that family and
business are inextricably intertwined, and that therefore family system characteristics should be taken into
consideration when attempting to understand family business. This is supported by recent studies which
emphasise the importance of social embeddedness to characteristics and behaviour of family businesses (Le
Breton-Miller & Miller, 2009; Steier et al., 2009).
Another group of studies sees family business as a special form of organisation (Chua et al., 1999;
Westhead, Howorth, & Cowling, 2002; Chrisman et al., 2006; Sundaramurthy, 2008; Yoshikawa & Rasheed,
2010). Despite the lack of universal agreement on the definition of a ‘family business’ (Handler, 1989;
Brockhaus, 1994; Litz, 1995; Chrisman et al., 2005), studies on family business characteristics have increased
significantly in the last few years. Areas that have received attention include succession (Westhead, Howorth,
& Cowling, 2002; Miller et al., 2003; Sharma et al., 2003; Royer et al., 2008); continuity (Winter et al., 2004);
strategic management (McCann III et al., 2001; Chrisman, Chua, & Sharma, 2005); credit and financial
management (Bopaiah, 1998; Yilmazer & Schrank, 2006); management style (Wong, 1985; Zahra, 2003;
Kellermanns, 2005), organisational culture (Dyer, 1986; Zahra et al., 2004; Hall & Nordqvist, 2008)
performance (Galbraith, 2003; Randøy & Goel, 2003) and customer relationship management (Cooper et al.,
2005). Notably the agency theory approach is a particularly popular theme of studies of family business
(Schulze et al., 2003; Le Breton-Miller & Miller, 2006; Westhead & Howorth, 2007; Chua et al., 2009).
Interestingly, despite the large number of studies, there is a lack of attention to marketing processes in family
businesses, with only few exceptions (Leung, 2001; Wright et al., 2003). Leung’s (2001) study briefly
describes the role of family and ethnic networks in the marketing strategies of ethnic Chinese IT businesses in
Germany. Another study by Wright et al. (2003), attempted to explore how small, ethnic, family-owned
businesses develop their own forms of relationship marketing in building their business. Their findings
suggest that family and social networks contribute to the firm’s customer targeting strategies and management
of customer relationships. One drawback of these studies is that marketing is being seen as one isolated
business function, rather than central to all business operations. This is challenged by researchers who argue
that marketing is the central function of a business (Gummesson, 1987; Grönroos, 1991). According to this
strand of research, to view marketing as an isolated business function is to ignore the complex,
interrelationship functions (eg. accounting, logistics, production, operation management etc) and the
business’s social embeddedness. Although Wright et al. (2003) and Leung’s (2001) studies recognise the
importance of family, embeddedness and marketing, there is a lack of theoretical insights that help us to make
sense of these relationships and make connections between disparate studies of family business and
marketing that have been carried out to date. This highlights the need for a conceptual framework to address
the complex interplay between family, social embeddedness and the marketing processes. The following
section discusses marketing theories in particular in the context of family business.
Marketing, Relationship Marketing and Social Embeddedness
Marketing as an academic discipline is a relatively new subject and is still lacking an integrated theory
(Mattsson, 1997; Harker & Egan, 2006). The genesis of marketing theory came from economics in particular
micro-economics (Palmer et al., 2005). Economic models and perspectives, asserted that the business world
could be reduced to formulas and equations, were extended to marketing, and led early marketing
theoreticians (McGarry, 1950; Alderson, 1957; McKitterick, 1957) to create ‘lists’ of marketing variables that
related to profit maximising equations. It is from such a list the originally 12 elements ‘marketing mix’
(McCarthy, 1960) were reduced to the infamous ‘4P’s’– price, product, place and promotion. This is still the
backbone of much research and teaching in marketing, partly due to its simplicity and communicability (Harker
& Egan, 2006).
Mainstream marketing theories, or what is known as the Transactional Marketing (TM) paradigm has been
criticised in many regards. The strongest criticism is that TM theories fail to recognise that much marketing
activity happens in places, cultures, and societies radically different from the 1950’s post-WWII US consumerproducts sector in which the original fieldwork was carried out (Gummesson, 1987; Grönroos, 1994; Elg &
Johansson, 1996; Brodie et al., 1997). Further criticism of TM theory lies in its inappropriateness in the
context of Industrial (Business-to-Business, B2B) interactions. The theory and practice of TM assumed that
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consumers were available in great numbers and behaved passively (Harker & Egan, 2006)). This model does
not apply to the B2B context, where the customer-firms are often limited in number and the interactive
participation of the customer is required to successfully complete the exchange (Gummesson, 1987). In
response to these criticisms, scholars have looked to develop new marketing paradigms by moving away from
the product-centric perspective of TM to other perspectives that hold more promise in terms of applicability
and relevance (For a detailed review of this, see Harker & Egan, 2006). In essence, two groups of scholars in
particular have taken stances that make current marketing research directly relevant and significant to future
development in family business studies in the B2B sector. Of these, the first group of immediate relevance has
based its position on the now overwhelming dominance of services in developed economies (Vargo & Lusch,
2004). A second strand of research that is particularly useful in advancing understanding family business is
what has become known as Relationship Marketing. Central to the notion of relationship marketing is the key
idea that interpersonal relationships and personal networks are of crucial significance in business success
(Gummesson, 2003). This is particularly relevant for the B2B sector because there are limited numbers of
customers and the relationship between suppliers and buyers is completely different to the consumer product
sector underpinning the TM paradigm, in which buyers are no longer seen as passive but as active
participants in the transaction. The active role consumers play has long been recognised in marketing
literature (Gummesson, 1998; Saren, 2007). Elliott and Wattanasuwan’s (1998) study suggests that
consumers are not passive recipients of what marketers do. They are actively involved in re-interpreting the
information presented to them in the process of decision making. The key feature of relationship marketing is
the relationship dynamic of the process. When selling a physical product, the costs of production are offset by
the revenue of the purchase. In B2B sector, the majority of costs are often incurred whilst ‘setting up’ the
service (Berry, 1995), in other words, the costs include the establishment of the conditions of the business
relationship to pave the way for the product and service to be provided. Importantly, the process of
relationship marketing is a lengthy and ongoing one (Payne & Holt, 2001; Stanko et al., 2007), in contrast to
the view underpinning the Transactional Marketing paradigm, which implies that marketing brings immediate
results (Dwyer et al., 1987). Dwyer et al. (1987) point out that interdependence in buyer-seller relationships
takes time to develop as relationships progress through stages. This is supported by Gummesson (1991
p.62), who argues that “a relationship between two parties is something that grows in strength through
repeated exchange over a period of time”. In other words, relationship marketing is a lengthy, interactive,
developmental and ongoing process (Webster, 1992; Blois, 2003; Stanko, Bonner, & Calantone, 2007;
Sabiote & Román, 2009).
The emphasis on inter-personal relationships and personal networks in relationship marketing theories
highlights the importance of embeddedness. The term “embeddedness” was introduced by Polanyi (1944).
His work is typically presented as the originator of the embeddedness concept (Granovetter, 1985; Zukin &
DiMaggio, 1990; Portes & Sensenbrenner, 1993; Barber, 1995). Polanyi’s concept of embeddedness has
been taken forward by Granovetter (1985) in his classic essay “The problem of embeddedness”. He defines
embeddedness as the on-going contextualisation of economic activity in social relations. Granovetter
criticised studies for either under- or over emphasising social and cultural factors. He argues that economic
actors are embedded in an ongoing system of social relations and that economic transactions and social
relations are intertwined and interrelated. The concept of ‘embeddedness’ has been widely debated since
Granovetter’s (1985) groundbreaking work. Definitions of embeddedness took shape in opposition to the
mainstream transactional marketing approach, which featured in neoclassical economics. Whereas
transactional marketing defines market transactions as strictly rational, faceless, and independent (Dacin et al.,
1999 p.319). Embeddedness theories focus both on social relations and individuals, as well as the outcomes
of their interactions. Applying this to the marketing process, a social embeddedness view helps to shift the
attention from specific marketing variables to the ongoing interactive social process between buyer and seller
firms.
It must be noted that the focus on the interpersonal interaction between buyer and seller is not a new
concept in marketing practice (O'Malley & Tynan, 1999; Berghäll, 2003; Bhagat, 2009). Some researchers
accurately point out that relationship marketing was widely practiced long before it was articulated in
marketing literature (O'Driscoll, 2006). This is not to suggest that RM has no contribution to make. Its key
contributions lie in its potential to integrate marketing theories and to combine theory and practice to develop a
cross-disciplinary approach that is of practical value to practitioners (Gummesson, 1998). It is with this in
mind that many researchers have attempted to explore and measure variables that are believed to shape the
buyer-seller relationships (Payne & Holt, 2001; Stanko, Bonner, & Calantone, 2007; Rogers et al., 2008). A
review of the extant literature helps to identify a key issue – studies tend to see the buyer-seller relationship as
a concrete, objective entity that can be isolated from its context and therefore measured objectively. This
issue is raised by Blois (2003) who points out that the B2B relationship is a socially constructed reality. By
using the case of the leading UK department store, Marks & Spencer, and one of its major garment suppliers,
Blois demonstrates that a committed relationship repeatedly emphasised publicly by both parties can
sometimes mean nothing more than lip-service on one side and “unrequited love” on the other. Blois’ study
4
echoes the findings of Dwyer et al’s (1987) earlier study, which highlights the importance of shared values and
understanding between the different parties that are involved in the marketing process. The suggestion that
the buyer-seller relationship is socially constructed fits comfortably with the ontological and epistemological
stance of social embeddedness. The central themes of social constructionism are the nature of reality,
knowledge, language and social order. According to Berger and Luckmann (1967), social order is based
fundamentally on shared social reality which, in turn, is a human construction that is created in social
interactions. It is recognised that, whilst people as biological organisms confront few limits or constraints in
the form of instinctual patterns, constraints develop in the form of a social order. Berger and Luckmann
argued that this order “is an ongoing human production. It is produced by man in the course of his ongoing
externalisation…social order exists only as a product of human activity” (p.52). Applying this to relationship
marketing, it can be argued that a buyer-seller relationship is based on shared social reality that involves
sharing understanding between different stakeholders in the marketing process and that this shared
understanding influences the behaviour of each party involved in the process. One key feature that must be
emphasised in this ongoing social interaction is the level and number of contacts between firms. In a B2B
context, the buyer-seller information exchange is complex and often includes multiple contacts points at
differing levels across the organisations (Hollyoake, 2009). Furthermore, the social interaction is embedded in
the complex web of the institutional context, namely cultural, social, political and economic factors.
Incorporating these, a relationship marketing process for the B2B sector is illustrated in Figure 1.
[insert Figure 1 about here]
It was argued earlier that family business can be seen as a special form of organisation in which the
involvement of family members in the ownership and management is the key defining feature, which
distinguishes family businesses from non-family businesses (Davis & Harveston, 1998; Galbraith, 2003; Olson
et al., 2003; Klein, Astrachan, & Smyrnios, 2005). Studies also suggest that business owners and their family
members are involved in different activities in the business (Ram et al., 2001; Dhaliwal & Kangis, 2006), and
therefore likely to be involved in the social interactions at multi-contact points between buyer and seller firms.
It is therefore interesting to explore the role of family in shaping the complex, ongoing relationship marketing
process. Interestingly, although a very strong theoretical case can be made, very little attention has so far
been paid to exploring this empirically. There is a lack of a coherent methodological framework that has the
potential to fulfil the research objectives. This will be discussed in-depth in the next section.
Methodological Framework
An integrated view of family, relationship marketing and social embeddedness, supported by a social
constructionist stance, has major implications methodologically. The importance of a methodological
framework that is consistent with the ontological and epistemological assumptions of the conceptual
framework is often neglected in the literature., as pointed out by Alvesson and Skoldberg: “Referring to
philosophical ideas without really using them is pointless, bewildering and means a waste of the time and
energy both of the researcher and of his or her unfortunate readers”(p.7). It is necessary, therefore, to make
explicit the impact of social constructionist and social embeddedness ideas on the research process.
Longitudinal study
This study was conducted using longitudinal, interpretive, reflexive, and qualitative fieldwork. A total of six
pairs of buyer-seller firms, all of which were Chinese family businesses, and a total of 78 informants
participated in the multi-stage, in-depth qualitative fieldwork over a period of eight years. It was noted earlier
that relationship marketing is a lengthy, developmental and an ongoing social process (Gummesson, 1987;
Blois, 2003; Stanko, Bonner, & Calantone, 2007). Therefore collecting information about a buyer-seller
relationship from a single point of time can, at best, capture a snapshot into the ongoing, lengthy social
interaction process (Blois, 2003). Longitudinal studies are needed to understand the development of the
relationship over time. The value of longitudinal studies is widely recognised (Aldrich et al., 1987; Schein,
1987; Dyck et al., 2002). However the difficulties of running a longitudinal study are also well-documented
(Fitzgerald et al., 1998; Thomson & Holland, 2003). These difficulties were summarised by Miller (2000:109),
‘financial costs, maintaining a committed research team across years, managing to find a funding body willing
to make the very long-term or open ended commitment necessary to fund the research, the difficulty of
identifying suitable individuals for study at the onset and keeping the main respondents committed to the study
involved over a span of years, all conspire to keep true longitudinal studies rare.’ (p.109). Faced with such
difficulties, most studies tend to take the “easy way out” by conducting fieldwork using tools such as
quantitative surveys or one-off qualitative interviews (Stanko, Bonner, & Calantone, 2007; Barry et al., 2008;
Roberts-Lombard & Steyn, 2008; Callarisa Fiol et al., 2009). Benefiting from financial and institutional support,
the researcher in this project was able to tackle these problems to complete this longitudinal study. Since
2000, the researcher has visited the buyer/seller firms annually and spent some time meeting with the
5
members of the family businesses at different levels in the company, ranging from business owners to clerical
support staff. This has allowed the researcher to keep track of developments within each of the companies, in
particular of the development of the buyer-seller relationships.
The main data collection method used was topic-oriented unstructured interviews with the aid of
observation. Over 60 company visits were made and 300 interviews with informants at different levels of the
company hierarchy were conducted over the timescale of the research. Unstructured interviews have
received considerable renewed interest, both as a part of ethnographic work and as a stand-alone data
collection strategy to accomplish goals other than those of ethnography (Arnould & Wallendorf, 1994). The
researcher’s task in an unstructured interview is to use various probes in a way that builds a dialogue, rather
than asking questions that impose categorical frameworks on informants’ understanding and experiences
(Arnould & Wallendorf, 1994). The conversation normally started with follow-up from previous conversations,
such as: ‘How’s the thing going with the company xyz? Is everything doing alright?’ to get the informants to
start talking about their organisational lives. In this way, many aspects related to buyer-seller relationship
were then revealed in the conversations. As a consequence, during the different phases of the fieldwork, key
themes began to emerge. The key themes then led the researcher to revisit relevant literature and reshape
the conceptual framework accordingly. This, in turn, informed the self-reflexive characteristics of research
work (Schultze, 2000).
Unit of Analysis, Gaining Access & Sampling
It was argued earlier that relationship marketing is a complex social interaction process that involves
participants in different positions from both buyer and seller firms (Payne & Holt, 2001). This is particularly
relevant in a B2B context, because the buyer-seller information exchange is complex and quite often includes
multiple contacts at differing levels (Blois, 2003; Hollyoake, 2009). Nevertheless, many studies of relationship
marketing have only collected data from either buyer or seller firms (Stanko, Bonner, & Calantone, 2007;
Barry, Dion, & Johnson, 2008). The one-party sampling model is challenged by researchers who argue that,
to understand the buyer-seller relationship, both the buyer and seller need to be included in the research
(Theron et al., 2008), because “the views of one party can at best only provide a partial picture” (Blois, 2003
p.90). In their study of relationship commitment, Theron et al. (2008) considered perceptions of relationship
managers from seller firms and clients in the B2B financial service sector. Although their study included both
buyer and seller firms, their informants were still limited to one respondent in each firm. Blois (2003) again
challenges the reliability of this approach, arguing that “collecting information about a B2B relationship from a
single respondent in a firm can, at best, only provide a partial insight into the nature of that firm’s relationship”.
In short, to understand the relationship marketing process, it is important to include informants from both
buyers and sellers; furthermore, members of staff at different levels who are involved in the ongoing social
interaction between the two firms need to be included in the study. Through personal contacts, the researcher
was able to gain access to a number of businesses in Hong Kong and China. By building a rapport with these
companies, the researcher was then able to gain access to different informants in each company.
Furthermore, the researcher was able to gain access to the respondents’ social relations, including their
customers, suppliers and competitors. A total of 12 family businesses which consisted of 6 pairs of buyerseller firms participated in the longitudinal study. The six pairs of buyer-seller firms were selected based on
two key criteria. Firstly, all these companies were in the B2B sector, although they came from different
industries. Secondly, these firms maintained established business relationships throughout the study, which
began in 2000. This allowed the researcher to observe the development of their relationships. There were 78
informants including business owners, members of staff from different areas including sales & marketing,
accounting, purchasing, shipping & logistics, production, product design and quality control. Although in a
B2B sector, most companies are both buyer and seller, this study will focus only the role they play in the
particular buyer-seller relationship. A brief summary of the companies’ profiles and the staff involved in the
buyer-seller interaction is provided in Table 1.
[insert Table 1 about here]
All the companies that participated in the study were Chinese Family Businesses. Chinese Family
Business is the single largest type of business in the world (Redding, 1990; Brown, 1995; Orru et al., 1997). It
is therefore of promising value to explore the relationship marketing process of Chinese Family Businesses in
order to aid understanding of social embeddedness, relationship marketing process and family business.
Where possible, interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed and analysed by the researcher, with the aid of
Nvivo data analysis software (mainly for data organising rather than ‘analysis’ purposes). Because of the
length of the project and richness of data, each of the companies would be a very interesting case study in its
own right. The analysis and discussion presented is the result of analysing all the fieldwork material, although
6
the interactions of one pair of buyer-seller firms, C3 and C5, will be discussed in more depth to help illustrate
the complex relationship between the firms. In the following section, key themes related to the topic will be
discussed.
Results & Findings: Making sense of buyer-seller interactions
It was pointed out earlier that the interaction between the buyer and seller in a B2B context is far more
complex than in the customer-retailer sector because the information exchange quite often includes multiple
contacts points across the organisations (Hollyoake, 2009). This claim is well supported by the fieldwork
material. In this study, all the six pairs of buyer and sellers firms have several contact points in their business
transactions (see Table 1). Figure 2 illustrates the formal interactions in a typical transaction between one
pair of buyer-seller firms, C3 and C5. C3 is a factory that provides computer embroidery services, such as
embroidering logos, brand names, and patterns on garments or textiles. Its main clients are garment factories
such as C5, which produces garments for domestic and overseas markets. A typical transaction would
involve information exchange related to many aspects of the order, including the quotation, price and
negotiation of terms, placing the order, financial arrangements, production, quality control, logistics and
delivery, and shipping documentation. As shown in Figure 2, there are at least nine contact points that involve
many individuals from various functions, and provide ample opportunities for information exchanges and
interactions between the two firms. Contacts are often conducted across a number of media, including faceto-face meetings, e-mails, mails and telephone conversations. Most of these interactions take place within
business premises during office hours. While these interactions help to understand how a business
transaction takes place, they offer limited insight of why the business transactions take place. In-depth
investigation of the formal and informal interactions reveals a more complete picture of the inter-firm
relationship. Figure 3 illustrates both formal and informal interactions between informants from the two firms.
As demonstrated in the diagram, there are far more contact points in the informal social interactions. Normally
these interactions took place outside office hours at social gatherings such as weddings, birthday parties,
occasional functions, games, karaoke evenings and dinners. From the analysis, there is strong evidence that
informal social interactions play a key role in shaping the buyer-seller relationship and thus the business
transactions between the buyer-seller firms. Some of the key aspects are discussed in the following sections.
[insert Figure 2 & Figure 3 about here]
Relationship first, marketing next
As mentioned earlier, the six pairs of buyer-seller firms have maintained business relationships for some
years (see Table 1). The study highlights the importance of the business owners’ personal relationship with
the buyer-seller firms. In fact, many personal relationships came into existence long before the buyer-seller
relationships were established. In some cases the buyer-seller relationships were established as a result of
their personal relationships.
“I used to work for a trading firm as a salesman of footwear. As a salesman I had constant contact with
some of the business owners and we became friends. One of them suggested to me to start up my business
as he wasn’t very happy with my then boss but he wanted to continue doing business with me. It wasn’t a
huge investment to start up a trading firm so I started up this firm and have been doing business with him
since then.” (TZL, founder of H5, footwear trading firm).
Other business owners have similar stories about having their friends or relatives as their key clients, or
start up their business because of opportunities arising from their social relations. Furthermore, business
owners and their families appear to play an active role in maintaining personal and business relationships to
generate sales revenue. The sales people, on the other hand, suggest that they are playing a customer
service role rather than the generally recognised role of generating sales revenue.
“I joined this company last year. One of my key responsibilities is to maintain constant contact with our
clients. I pay visits to them regularly. C5 is one of our key clients. We’ve been doing business with them for
many years. There isn’t a lot of selling in my regular visits, it’s more about them telling me what they want and
I try to meet their needs. Sometimes they ring me to tell me that a new order is waiting and I’d go there to get
the material and take it back to our factory to get the sample done. My boss and C5’s business owner are
relatives and we all know that is very important for us to get these orders.” (CTM, salesman of C3,
Manufactory of automatic embroidery service)
From the accounts of the informants, it is clear the personal relationships between the buyer and seller
firms, especially those between business owners, play a key role in shaping the business relationships
between buyers and sellers. Those who maintain good personal relationships appear to maintain good
7
business relationships, and vice versa. For example, the owners of C3 and C7 (both manufacturers of
automatic embroidery services) are brothers and sisters. Because of the help of C3’s business owner, LTZ,
C7’s business owner, LSY and her husband were able to start up a factory next to C3. The two factories used
to share orders (in the forms of outsourcing), which was very helpful for C7 as a new business. During the
year 2000-2002, about 30% of C7’s orders came directly or indirectly through C3. In early 2003 the brothers
and sisters fell out because of disputes related to inheritance, and the two factories ceased their business
relationship altogether. In 2007 the brothers and sisters started talking to each other again at social
gatherings but it is generally believed in their social circle that their personal relationship has never healed.
The two factories’ business relationship has never resumed.
It’s business, after all
As discussed above, whilst personal relationships play a key role in shaping business relationships, this is
not to suggest that the personal relationship is the only factor that is important. From the accounts of the
informants, it is clear that other factors such as price, quality, delivery, reliability and reputation also play a key
role in maintaining business relationships. This is illustrated in the account of another pair of buyer-seller
firms, H3 & H10 (See Table 1)
“To maintain a good relationship we have to make sure everything goes alright, you know, price, delivery,
quality, consistency etc. Whenever they (H10) request a sample to be made, it’ll be our first priority and we
don’t charge any sample fee. We have to work harder with them than with our casual clients. There’s too
much at stake, if they know that we’re offering a better price or better service to other customers then it’ll dent
our friendship and our business relationship. They’re not just a client but also a friend, and also your face and
reputation in the social circle.” (LDY, owner of H3, porcelain factory)
Accounts from H3’s buyer appear to share the same understanding about their business relationship:
“LDY and I are very good friend. Our friendship dates back for generations. Over the years I’ve been relying
on them to produce the samples requested by my clients. I don’t have any production facility yet I need the
samples to be made, they don’t have access to clients directly and so we need to work together to get the
orders. Of course they need to offer a good price and good quality, otherwise our clients wouldn’t place the
order with us and we would have no orders for them. So in many ways we are working for each other, helping
each other.” (LB, owner of H10, porcelain trading firm)
The accounts from both the buyer and seller firms demonstrate that their business relationship is not all
about emotional decisions as one may suggest, but rational business decisions from both the perspective of
both the buyer and the seller. For the sellers, dealing with their long term customers is no less than being
marketing orientated; whilst for the buyers, purchasing the right product at the best price and quality is still
their top priority.
Keep it all in the family
From the accounts of the informants, it is clear that the business owners and their families play active roles
in maintaining the personal and thus business relationships with their clients. It is also clear that many of the
social interactions take place in an informal way. Another key feature that was identified from the analysis is
the shared understanding among the business owners and their families that the personal and business
relationships should be kept in the family.
“Now I’m semi-retired, I leave most of the daily operation to my son and daughter. But one thing I need to
keep doing is to maintain the good friendship with my customers. That’s why I’m so busy travelling all year
around. Many of them are my friends and relatives. Last month I attended one of my client’s son’s wedding.
Next month my daughter is getting married and they’re invited. I travel almost every month to different
countries, including the US, the UK, Australia and Canada. It’s important to see your clients and to maintain
good friendships, because that’s how business is run. In the last few years I’ve asked my son to go travelling
with me because when I’m retired, he’s to take over and if the clients don’t know him, that’d be the end of the
friendship and business relationship.” (TZL, owner of H2, footwear trading firm)
It appears that business owners are passing on the personal and business relationship to their successors
(normally their sons or daughters). Business owners repeatedly emphasised that the business relationship
“has to stay in the family” because “outsiders cannot be trusted”. In light of this, special arrangements are
made to ensure that the relationship is passed on to the successors, and one common way of doing this is to
get the business owners’ sons or daughters involved in the informal social gatherings with the buyer firms.
Furthermore, arrangements are made in the structure and daily operations of the business to ensure important
customer related information is under full control of the family. For example in H2, the owner’s son is in
charge of marketing and is dealing with ongoing contacts with customers in relation to sales, while the owner’s
daughter is in charge of accounting and has full control of all financial transactions between firms. Similar
8
arrangements can be found in many firms that participated in this study, for example C3 (see Figure 1), in
which case the owner’s son is also in charge of marketing activities. The business owners made no effort to
hide the rationale of their arrangements:
“The business relationship has to stay in the family, if you leave it to the outsiders to deal with it, you
basically give your business away to outsiders. If they have established the business relationship with the
customers, they wouldn’t need you, they would leave and start up their own business or sell your orders to
other suppliers. That’s why I have my son in charge of sales and marketing and my wife to keep a close eye
on the books. It’s too important to leave it to outsiders.” (LTZ, owner of C3, owner of automatic embroidery
factory)
From the accounts of the informants, it is clear that the role of family in attracting and maintaining the
personal and business relationships, and its impact on relationship marketing process is understood by the
informants, including not only the business owners and their families, but also their non-kin employees and
customers.
Discussion - Family, Social Interactions and Relationship Marketing Process
The analysis in the in last section helps to shed some light on the process of relationship marketing in a
Chinese context. The findings of this study support the view that relationship marketing is a lengthy, complex
social process between multi-informants from both buyer and seller firms (Webster, 1992; Blois, 2003).
Nevertheless, the key finding of this study relates not to the formal interactions between buyer-seller firms, but
to the impact of informal interactions between buyer and seller firms. This study highlights the importance of
personal relationships in shaping business relationships and transactions between the buyer and seller firms.
The important role of personal relationships and personal networks in business success is well documented in
the literature (Granovetter, 1973; Redding, 1990; Jack, 2005). Our analysis goes a step further than this, and
suggests that personal relationships are the backbone of business relationships in at least two key aspects.
Firstly, on some occasions personal relationships give rise to business relationships. Secondly, good business
relationships tend to be supported by healthy personal relationships between buyer and sellers firms, whilst
deterioration in personal relationships can often lead to the disruption of business relationships between buyer
and seller firms. These findings challenge the prevailing view that personal relationships are established after
business transactions take place and a business relationship established (Thach & Olsen, 2006).
The in-depth analysis helps to extend understanding of the respective role each member of staff plays in
the relationship marketing process. The important role of salespeople in generating sales revenue is well
recognised in the literature (Bäckström et al., 2009; Steward, 2009), mainly because salespeople are dealing
with customers directly and therefore are at the frontline. In-depth analysis of the interactions helps to reveal
an interesting finding. Although it is the salespeople who are engaged in constant formal interactions with the
customers, their role is not necessarily to generate sales revenue, but to provide a contact point for customer
service in an established business relationship.
The analysis also highlighted the important role the business owners and their families play. Business
owners and their family members are actively involved in informal social interactions with their buyers and
sellers, which help maintain healthy personal relationships with them. This in turn shapes the business
relationships between the buyer and seller firms. In other words, actively engaging in social interactions with
their personal networks can be seen as part and parcel of the business owners and their families’ relationship
marketing activities. From the analysis it is possible to infer that many important business decisions are made
during informal social interactions, whilst formal interactions that happen on the business premises can be
seen as a result of personal relationships.
It must be noted that the importance of personal relationships no way undermines the importance of the
quality of the business transactions between the buyer and seller firms. The buyer-seller partnership
relationship in the B2B sector is well supported in the literature (Thach & Olsen, 2006; Purinton et al., 2007).
Business owners from both buyer and seller firms repeatedly emphasise the importance of “working together”
with their buyer or seller in order to be competitive in terms of price, quality, reliability, consistency and
customer service, which in turn helps them to succeed in generating sales revenue. As such it can be argued
that the business transactions are based on both rational and emotional decisions on the foundation of
mutually trusted, interdependent personal relationship.
From the analysis it is clear that business owners and their families are well aware of the importance of
personal relationships to the success of their business, and they are therefore actively involved in maintaining
these personal relationships. Importantly, their attitudes towards personal relationships and business
relationships are characteristic of their status as family businesses. The fieldwork analysis shows that
business owners and their family members are working very hard to keep the personal relationships and
9
business relationships in the family. Business owners and their families repeatedly use “outsiders” to refer to
non-kin employees, and a lack of trust of non-kin employees can be identified in their discourse. Indeed, a
central theme across the analysis is the different level of trust and commitment towards family, friendship and
kinship. This appears to influence how business is conducted between buyer and seller firms and how
relationships are managed in a family business. To make sense of this, it is essential to understand the social
and cultural background of the informants, who are all ethnic Chinese. Redding (1990) has provided a useful
explanation in his landmark study of Chinese society. He points out that the institutional and historical
contexts of Chinese society gave rise to a distinctive feature of interpersonal attitudes: “You trust your family
absolutely, your friends and acquaintances to the degree that mutual dependence has been established and
‘face’ invested in them. With everybody else you make no assumption about their goodwill” (p.66). Redding’s
findings are useful in making sense of the attitude of informants in this study, whether they are business
owners, family members, or non-kin employees. Because strangers cannot be trusted, it is not only desirable,
but indeed necessary to do business with those whom they can trust and depend on, ie., their friends and
relatives. Because “outsiders” cannot be trusted, family business owners need to ensure that the personal
relationships are kept in the family to protect their family interests. To achieve this, the business owners
ensure that their successors are involved in ongoing social interactions with their customers. On the other
hand, the customers of family business are equally eager to maintain personal relationship with their suppliers’
family in order to maintain the business relationship. Through ongoing social interactions, this give rises to the
shared understanding among individuals, which in turn further reinforces the institutionalised meanings of
personal relationships and impact on relationship marketing in the specific social context.
Conclusions and Implications
This paper began by reviewing literature in order to provide a background and context to the Chinese
Family Business, family business in general and the relationship marketing process. It is clear that there is a
lack of attention to the marketing process in the family business literature, in particular to the role of family in
establishing and maintaining the business-to-business (B2B) buyer-seller relationship. The paper then went
on to discuss marketing and relationship marketing theories, focusing on their usefulness in understanding
family business in the B2B sector. It was argued that a social embeddedness perspective has the potential to
shed light on the complex social process of building and maintaining buyer-seller relationships. A theoretical
and coherent methodological framework that embraces theories of relationship marketing and social
embeddedness in a family business context was then presented. Using longitudinal, interpretive approaches,
fieldwork was carried out with a total of 12 family businesses (6 pairs buyer-seller firms) and 78 informants,
who participated in the multi-stage fieldwork over a period of eight years. Using discourse analysis, the way in
which informants talk about business transactions, marketing, personal and business relationship was
presented and analysed. An investigation of the shared meanings and underlying assumptions of the
discourse used by the informants revealed the complex process of relationship marketing.
The analysis supports the view that relationship marketing is a lengthy, ongoing social process that
involves both formal interactions and informal social interactions with multi contact points across the buyerseller firms. The paper revealed three key findings. Firstly, in-depth analysis demonstrates the importance of
social embeddedness to informants’ attitude and behaviour towards the relationship marketing process. The
paper challenges the prevailing view that companies begin to build up relationships with their existing
customers with the aim of encouraging repeat purchases, suggesting instead that it is also possible for
business relationship to be developed from personal relationships. In other words, personal relationships act
as both a lubricant and a catalyst of business relationships. Secondly, the study finds that relationships
between buyer and seller firms are both emotional and rational. Factors such as price, quality, reliability and
consistency also play a key role in maintaining the business relationship between firms. Thirdly, business
owners and their family members are well aware of the importance of the personal and business relationships
and they work hard to ensure that the relationships are kept in the family. Further analysis shows that the
social and cultural context is essential in shaping the shared understanding and behaviour related to personal
and business relationships and thus relationship marketing process. The findings of this study have important
implications for relevant parties.
Practitioners
Marketing has always been an important function for practitioners in industry, although the relevance and
appropriateness of applying mainstream Transaction Marketing theories to the B2B sector is questioned. This
paper presents an alternative view of relationship marketing that helps to shed new light on how, why, when
and where buyer-seller firm interactions take place in the B2B sector in a Chinese context. The findings of
this study suggest that under specific social and cultural context, personal relationships are equally important,
if not more important, than business relationships between buyer and sellers firms. Although the importance
of personal relationships is well recognised in the literature (O'Malley & Tynan, 1999; Berghäll, 2003; Iyer et
al., 2006), it is not necessarily welcomed by the practitioners. Indeed some might considered it as irrational or
even unethical (Dunfee & Warren, 2001; Wang, 2007). The findings of this study suggest that personal
10
relationships and business relationships are intertwined to such an extent, that to ignore one aspect in favour
of another will inevitably affect the effectiveness and efficiency of the relationship marketing process.
Furthermore, in-depth knowledge of the relationship marketing process can help the practitioners, whether
they are business owners, non-kin manager or employees, to understand the role each participant plays in the
process and to ensure that appropriate resources and support is provided to the right department. Finally, an
advancement in understanding of the relationship marketing process is equally important for newly
established business since it helps them to realise their strengths and weaknesses in the new business sector
they enter and it helps to inform their decision-making related to developing personal and business
relationships.
Family Business members
The findings of this study demonstrate the important role the business owners and their families play in the
relationship marketing process in a Chinese context, which echoes findings of studies across cultures (Wright,
Martin, & Stone, 2003). Importantly, the analysis shows that family business owners and their families are
well aware of the important role of personal relationships and also work very hard to keep them in the family
as a means to protect their family interests. The key reason for this is the absolute trust among family
members and the lack of trust of non-kin. Whilst this attitude is perfectly understandable, it may not be in their
best interests to exclude non-family members in this way. By ensuring that personal relationships stay in the
family, the family business owners have in many ways excluded the non-kin employees in the key interactions
between buyer and seller firms. Not only may this affect the morale of non-kin employees in the family
business, but it may also prevent competent non-kin employees from fully contributing to the family business.
Furthermore, family members are not necessarily the most competent members of staff to deal with customer
interactions. Where they are not the most competent people to deal with key decisions, a policy of keeping
key positions for family members can potentially put the company’s competitive advantage at risk.
Researchers
Although this study is based on fieldwork conducted in a specific cultural context, the findings of this study
have potential implications for research. The first is it provides a conceptual and theoretical framework to
address the socially embedded, interactive, ongoing relationship marketing process. It was pointed out
earlier, that many studies focus on specific factors which only allow partial insights into the relationship
marketing process. This comprehensive framework provides insights for a broader picture of relationship
marketing and family business research. It allows researchers from different disciplines to produce
complementary work that contributes to the area of relationship marketing and family business, particularly in
the B2B sector. The second implication is the importance of a coherent methodological framework to support
a social embeddedness view of relationship marketing. This highlights several key features that are essential
in project design. Including multi-respondents from both buyer and seller firms provides a fuller picture of the
complex interactions, and a longitudinal in-depth qualitative study allows an investigation of the development
of the interactions between buyer-seller firms over time.
Contribution to knowledge, limitations and directions for future research
This paper contributes to conceptual and practical knowledge in advancing understanding of the
relationship marketing process in a Chinese context, and has potential implications for a wider cultural and
institutional context. In addition, it contributes to the general knowledge of relationship marketing in the B2B
sector. In particular, the result adds to our understanding of the essential role the family plays in the process
of relationship marketing in a family business. Secondly, it helps to shed new light on the complex process of
formal and informal interaction between buyer and seller firms in a B2B sector. A better understanding of the
complex process is particularly important to all the parties involved in the process, including the business
owners, family members, and non-kin employees. Furthermore, a longitudinal qualitative approach, with
informants from both buyer-seller firms, plus multi-respondents from each firm, is particularly useful in
investigating the complex, dynamic relationship marketing process in a family business context.
This study is based on fieldwork material collected from a Chinese context, as such some of the findings
may be limited to the specific cultural context and therefore the applicability across cultures need to be further
explored. Although it is not a small project, since it lasted over eight years, involved hundreds of lengthy
conversations with the informants, and generated very rich data, it is still a study of a relatively small number
of people. Further research can take forward the findings of this study and conduct larger scale, quantitative
and/or qualitative research to 1) compare the relationship marketing process between family business and
non-family business; 2) conduct cross-cultural comparative studies to investigate the impact of institutional
context on the relationship marketing process; 3) conduct cross-sector studies to investigate the impact of
industry sector on the relationship marketing process; 4) undertake a cross-national comparative survey of
relationship marketing from a social embeddedness perspective. It is expected that these research topics
have the potential to yield more insightful findings to contribute to this interesting, relevant but underresearched area of interest.
11
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Figure 1. Relationship Marketing Process in Industrial (B2B) Sector
Business relationship
Seller Firm
Buyer Firm
•
•
•
•
Business
owners/managers
Purchasing
Accounting
Admin & support etc.
•
Ongoing, multipoint contact social
interactions
•
•
•
Business
owners/managers
Sales & Marketing
Accounting
Admin & support etc.
Personal relationships
16
Figure 2. Formal interaction between buyer-seller firms in a typical transaction
Seller Firm
C3 - Automatic
Embroidery Factory
Buyer Firm
C5 - Garment Factory
Business Owner
Business Owner
Accounting Manager
(Owner’s wife)
Accounting Manager
(Owner’s daughter)
Sales Manager
(Owner’s son)
Purchasing Manager
(Owner’s daughter)
Production Manager
(Owner’s daughter in-
Production Manager
Non-kin employee
law
Shipping & Logistic
Manager
(Owner’s cousin)
Shipping & Logistic
Manager
(Owner’s nephew)
Other staff
Other staff
• Account clerk (non-kin)
• Shipping clerk (non-kin)
• Quality Control officer
(owner’s distant relative)
• Admin clerk (non-kin)
• Purchasing clerk (non-kin
• Account clerk (owner’s
niece)
17
Figure 3. Ongoing formal and informal interaction between buyer-seller firms
Seller Firm
C3 - Automatic
Embroidery Factory
Buyer Firm
C5 - Garment Factory
Business Owner
Business Owner
Accounting Manager
(Owner’s wife)
Accounting Manager
(Owner’s daughter)
Sales Manager
(Owner’s son)
Purchasing Manager
(Owner’s daughter)
Production Manager
(Owner’s daughter in-
Production Manager
Non-kin employee
law
Shipping & Logistic
Manager
(Owner’s cousin)
Shipping & Logistic
Manager
(Owner’s nephew)
Other staff
Other staff
•
•
•
•
Salesman (non-kin)
Account clerk (non-kin)
Shipping clerk (non-kin)
Quality Control officer
(owner’s distant relative)
• Admin clerk (non-kin)
• Purchasing clerk (non-kin
• Account clerk (owner’s
niece)
18
Table 1. Buyer-Seller Firms Profiles and Staff Involved in Buyer-Seller Interaction
Shipping, Logistic &
Admin staff
Trading – footwear

R
R
R
U
2
15
14
C3
20
Manufacturing –
automatic embroidery

R
R
R
R +
U
3
43
8
C7
9

R
R
U
U
4
10
9
H7
10
Manufacturing –
automatic embroidery
Trading - textile
R
+
U
R
+
U
R

R
R
R
U
U
C6
12
Manufacturing garment

U
R
R
R
5
55
12
H3
21
Manufacturing porcelain

U
R
R
R
H10
12
Trading – porcelain

R
R
U
U
6
28
14
C4
19
Manufacturing
snack

R
R
U
U
N
A
U
C8
18
Wholesaler snack

U
R
U
R


R
U
R+U
NA
–
Industry
Staff involved in formal or
informal buyer-seller interactions
H5
15
Exporter footwear

R
R
R
U
U
C5
23
Manufacturing garment

R
R
U
R +
U
H6
17
Trading - textile

R
R
R/U
U
R
+
U
U
Others
Business
Age*
Others
Production & Quality
Control
11
Co.
Name
Shipping, Logistic &
Admin staff
Sales & Marketing
H2
Staff involved in formal or
informal buyer-seller interactions
Production & Quality
Control
Accounting & Finance
11
Industry
Purchasing
Business Owners
20
Business
Age *
Accounting & Finance
Longest business relationships*
1
Co.
Name
Business Owners
Longest personal relationships*
Buyer Firms
Pair
Seller Firms
N
A
U
N
A
Business owner involved in buyer-seller social interaction
Business owner not involved in buyer-seller social interaction
Family member involved
Non-kin employee involved
Family member and non-kin employee involved
No family member or non-kin employee involved
* data dated Dec 2009
19