Business relationship process management as company dynamic capability improving relationship portfolio ☆ Maciej Mitrega a, ⁎, Gregor Pfajfar b,1 a University of Economics in Katowice, ul. 1 Maja 50, 40-287 Katowice, Poland b Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Kardeljeva pl. 17, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia abstract article info Article history: Received 1 August 2011 Received in revised form 1 August 2014 Accepted 1 October 2014 Available online 5 March 2015 Keywords: Relationship process Relationship management Relationship portfolio performance Relationship termination Dynamic capabilities Recent studies on industrial marketing and business networks suggest that business relationships are changeable phenomena and many of them loose their rent-generating mechanism in time, especially when opportunity costs are taken into consideration. Unfortunately, our knowledge about management tools oriented at handling relationship dynamics is relatively weak. Trying to fill this gap, this study proposes a concept of Business Relationship Process Management (BRPM) and grounds it in dynamic capability view of company's strategy. BRPM comprises actions that help a company to restructure its relationship portfolio and improve relationships with deficient partners. This study contributes also to management knowledge by providing an empirical test for the validity of BRPM on the basis of an online survey conducted with 307 Polish companies that handle relationships in supply area. It supports the hypothesis that BRPM leverages the relationship portfolio performance and it complements other relationship-related strategies, like building personal business ties and relationship flexibility. The environmental uncertainty is discussed and tested as a factor moderating the influence of BRPM on relationship portfolio performance. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Inter-company relationships became a driver of competitive advan- tage as business environment continues to grow more competitive (Dyer & Hatch, 2006; Gulati, Nohria, & Zaheer, 2000; Mesquita, Anand, & Brush, 2008). Our knowledge on business relationships has substan- tially progressed, including such aspects as: relationship development process (Dwyer, Schurr, & Oh, 1987; Ford, 1980), relationship change (Halinen, Salmi, & Havila, 1999; Schurr, Hedaa, & Geersbro, 2008), relationship ending and renewal (Alajoutsijarvi, Moller, & Tahtinen, 2000; Tahtinen & Halinen, 2002). Business relationships of the focal company are embedded in wider relationship structures, therefore there are several possible approaches to understanding relational phenomena (Halinen et al., 1999; Uzzi, 1996). We know much less about the intentionally developed relationship portfolios than the characteristics of organically evolved networks (Möller et al., 2005; Ritter, Wilkinson, & Johnston, 2004), specifically there has been relatively little empirical research on business routines through which the company may successfully manage such portfolios (Szwejczewski, Lemke, & Goffin, 2005). Moreover, prior studies on relationship management capabilities mostly focused on routines to develop and coordinate collaborative relationships (Ritter et al., 2004; Walter et al., 2006), neglecting to a large extent the changeable nature of established partnerships. Managing relationship ending and relationship initiation did not receive much attention, especially when it comes to testing theoretical models with empirical data (Cui, 2013; Havila & Medlin, 2012). In this study we aim at enriching our understanding of business relationship management on both: conceptual and empirical levels. Firstly, we review literature and develop the managerial concept of Business Relationship Process Management (BRPM) that includes routines oriented at both: improving worsening relationships and reconfiguring relationship portfolio by attracting new promising partners, and ending unprofitable relationships. We ground our concep- tualization in the dynamic capabilities approach as a wider theoretical framework (e.g., Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997). Secondly, we present the results of the field study. Our study provides the evidence that BRPM leverages the effectiveness of business relationship portfolio. Thus, the nomological validity of the new proposed concept is support- ed. The moderation analysis results suggest that the importance of BRPM increases when the company is operating in a more dynamic environment. Last, but not least, we test the influence of personal ties and relationship flexibility to control the effect of other complementary approaches to managing business relationships. At the end of the paper, Industrial Marketing Management 46 (2015) 193–203 ☆ This research was financed by the National Science Centre (NCN) in Poland (Grant no.: N N115 004340). ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +48 32 257 75 80. E-mail addresses: maciej.mitrega@ue.katowice.pl (M. Mitrega), gregor.pfajfar@ef.uni-lj.si (G. Pfajfar). 1 Tel: +386 1 5892 821. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2015.02.029 0019-8501/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Industrial Marketing Management