Taller tres: Como formar a nuestros hijos e hijas de mejor manera

The division into relationship and episodes has been used frequently in interaction-network literature (e.g. Håkansson 1982; Johansson and Matsson 1987; Håkansson and Snehota 1995; Halinen 1997). Within this research tradition, it is important to distinguish between short-term (episodes) and long-term aspects of relationships (e.g. Ford 1993). Episodes are considered as affecting, and are affected by the whole relationship.

Episodes are also considered as consisting of four different kinds of exchanges: product and service exchange, information exchange, financial exchange and social exchange (e.g. Håkansson 1982). Episodes have been defined as referring to different acts that facilitate the exchange processes (Håkansson 1982; Ford 1993). This view of episodes neglects other interaction processes (i.e. adaptation and coordination) that take place within the relationship. Halinen (1997) has taken this into account, and defines episodes as referring to all the discrete acts that partners perform within the relationship.

Based on both interaction literature and service quality literature Liljander and Strandvik (1995b) have defined an episode as an event of interaction with a clear starting and ending points and representing a complete service exchange. Episode can consist of several interactions or acts. Halinen (1997), in turn, in her study concerning advertising agency- client relationships takes the view that every discrete act is considered as an episode of its own.

Stauss and Seidel (1995) have changed the division made by Liljander and Strandvik (1995b) in several respects. First, they replaced the word "acts" by the word "service encounter" which is merely used in service quality literature (e.g. Shostack 1985). Second, they added transaction level between relationships and episodes. Transactions are defined in a similar manner as Liljander and Strandvik (1995b) define episodes. Adding transaction to the model could have been a view adopted from industrial marketing where episodes are often seen as transactions (e.g. Webster 1992). Third, episodes are defined as having a clear beginning or end, but not forming a complete service in themselves. (Stauss and Seidel 1995; see also Neuhaus 1995). In this division between relationships, transactions, episodes and service encounters the difficulty in practice, at least from evaluation perspective, would probably be the differentiation between transaction and episode.

The same difficulty in differentiation also concerns the separation made by Holmlund (1997, pp. 94-98). She has differentiated five different aggregation levels namely partner base, relationships, sequences, episodes and actions. The partner base is defined as all the relationships that a particular firm has at a particular point of time. Action in turn is defined as the most detailed type of interaction, which may concern any kind of exchange element (i.e. money, product, information or social contacts). Episodes in turn represent several interconnected actions and are for example negotiation or a shipment process. Sequence is defined as a group of interrelated episodes and correspond with Halinen´s (1997) assignment. According to Holmlund (1997) sequence is related to a certain time period, and thus a project represents a good example of sequence. Relationship, in turn, represents an interaction level which is comprised of all sequences (ibid.). The definitions of the levels in between action and partner base are partly related to levels below and above them and partly presented in the form of practical example. In my opinion, this illustrates the boundness to

practical reality of these divisions. It can be argued whether all of these levels of interactions can be found from each practical reality.

It can be argued that the implementation of this kind of construct as a tool for something else than identifying the levels of interactions in practice becomes more difficult when the number of different levels increases. Consequently, the usefulness of the division as a tool in studying relationship quality evaluation suffers. It can be argued that the evaluation happens in two different levels, episode and relationship levels (e.g. Liljander and Strandvik 1994; Halinen 1997; Lehtinen and Järvelin 1995; Järvelin and Lehtinen 1996).

The definition of episode by Liljander and Strandvik (1995b) can be used as a starting point for the definition of episode to be used in business relationships. The division they have made, also can be regarded as being suitable for business relationships. For example, in industrial maintenance and repair service the buyer and seller can have an on-going relationship, which is confirmed by a two-year contract. In this example every repair of a device forms a clear episode with several acts or interaction between the firms. Also, when the device has for example its yearly check-up, (i.e. maintenance service), it is an episode which consists of several acts between partners. However, the definition by Liljander and Strandvik (1995b) has some shortcomings, and thus some modifications are, according to my view, needed in order that the definition is usable also in business relationships.

First, it concentrates on the product/service exchange and the other exchange processes (e.g. exchange of information) are considered as being only acts in the product/service exchange episodes. In practice there can, however, exist episodes which do not involve any exchange of products/services, but can still have a clear starting and ending point and have a considerable affect to the whole relationship. An example of this can be negotiations about a new automation system, which are interrupted because of the financial crisis of the buying company or the different social exchange situations between the leaders of the firms which have no clear connection to any product/service exchange, but can be important for the whole relationship.

For episode to cover all the possible exchange processes it has to cover all the interaction processes including adaptations and coordination. It can be argued that adaptations and coordination do not in practice take place independently, but through the other exchange processes. For example, the adaptations in the form of investments made to the relationship actually take place as a product (investment product) and perhaps also as a financial exchange. Thus, the adaptations and coordination are included in this study as part of the exchange processes.

Second, the clear starting and ending point for the episodes might be sometimes difficult to trace. Thus as the differentiation of the episode from the other episodes is the key issue, the word “discernible” perhaps better illustrates this.

Taking these modifications into consideration, an episode can be defined as the following: An episode is a discernible series of acts occurring in the business relationship, and it represents an exchange process of product/service, information, financial issues, social issues or a combination of these.

In figure 3 the different levels used in this study, i.e. relationships, episodes and acts, and their interrelationships are presented. In has to kept in mind that the operationalization of these different levels varies according to the different empirical realities.

RELATIONSHIP

EPISODE EPISODE EPISODE

ACT ACT ACT ACT ACT ACT ACT ACT ACT

Figure 3: The different aggregation levels used in this study.

However, a word of caution must be mentioned here concerning the definition and division made. The implementation of this division in relationships, episodes and acts can, however, in practice be problematic in some respects. For example, the identification of episodes is quite easy afterwards, but can we say when an episode is starting or perhaps ending, when we are actually "living" in the middle of that episode. It has to be also noticed that naturally episodes consist of interaction between partners, and also actions inside the partner organizations. These minor entities here are called acts.

3. USE OF CONCEPTS RELATED