Managing relationship gaps: A practitioner perspective

Prior research has failed to explain how practitioners manage relationship gaps, i.e., situations where the interests of the parties in the relationship no longer match. By adopting a practice-based research approach to explain empirical findings drawn from industrial (B2B) service contexts, this study contributes an explanatory framework of how practitioners handle relationship gaps in practice and what factors guide and shape their behaviors. This analysis is based on work life stories from practitioners at six different industrial companies and shows that relationship gaps are managed through four alternative gap management practices, each characterized by a specific set of activities. The practitioner's perception of the validity and feasibility of the available options guides the scope of action within which different sets of activities are enacted.