Soft Power Effect on Long-Term Buyer-Seller Relationship: A Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach and Evidence from the Turkish Smartphone Sector

Purpose Power is crucial in influencing the parties' mutual relations during supply chain transactions. In this context, power can be defined as the ability of a firm, which is in the position of buyer or seller, to influence the behaviors and decisions of the other party or to move them in line with their wishes. In some cases, the power may lie with the commercial buyer and, in some cases, with the seller. The characteristics of the sector usually shape this position. In addition, power itself is classified as coercive and non-coercive power according to how it is exercised. Coercive power directs the other party to the target behaviors with imposition and punishments. Non-coercive power, on the other hand, directs the target behaviors by using rewards and creating attraction points. According to the resource dependency theory, companies with coercive power are usually the leading companies due to having vital resources for other stakeholders in the supply chain. Studies have shown that non-coercive power should also be considered an essential factor in terms of maintaining the relationship in the long term. However, no study has been found on the effect of non-coercive power and the coercive power of the companies that are in a strong position in making the supplier selection decision of the buyers at the beginning. As a reason for this, it can be shown that the coverage of non-coercive power elements in the literature is insufficient, and some of them are used as coercive power elements. In this sense, it is suggested for the first time that the concept of soft power, generally used in the literature to explain power relations among countries or organizations, should be included in the analysis to explain power relations within the supply chain. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the effect of soft power, including non-coercive power factors, in buyer-seller relations and to determine whether the soft power elements differentiate the supplier selection decisions of the buyers.