Existing industrial marketing studies have underscored the pivotal role of customer concentration in shaping supplier strategic decision-making. This research extends this body of literature by introducing a crucial yet often overlooked temporal dimension to the consequences for customer concentration. In particular, we focus on supplier strategic persistency, which is temporal consistency of supplier strategic decisions over time. Drawing on resource dependence theory, our study posits that high customer concentration compels suppliers to prioritize short-term objectives of major customers over their own long-term strategic directions, thereby undermining strategic persistence. Moreover, we explore how industry competition and institutional development moderate the relationship between customer concentration and strategic persistence. This study contributes theoretically by advancing our understanding of customer concentration’s dynamic consequences, strategic persistence, and resource dependence theory.
