Discovering Consistency of Inter-firm Trade Contacts as Performance Indicator: Advancements, Dilemmas and Perspectives

What are the primary attributes an economic subject should possess in order to become financially attractive? There are many possible answers to this question. This paper focuses on the concept of “sustained” competitive advantage as a possible indicator of economic and financial accountability for a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) or a firm. For this purpose, the concept of 'Intermediate market (or inter-firm) trade contact’ (ITC) has been devised. ITC is a transactional capital resource measured by the purchases and/or sales within the business-to-business market. In a resource-based view of the firm framework, only valuable (above-normal), rare (concentrated), inimitable (stable) and non substitutable (powerful) ITCs become relevant. The main aim of this paper is to discuss the state-of-the art on the subject, by presenting the key progress made in relevant studies. A positive relationship between valuable, rare, low-imitable ITCs and the total market sales multiplier (proxy of sustained competitive advantage) has been identified. This offers an opportunity to manage investments considering the most valuable, rare and inimitable (consistent) business–to–business relationships as a measure of firm and PPP accountability.