Where inequity is perceived to exist one or other party will take action to try to
rectify the situation. These actions may be initiated by either the aggrieved party
and/or the other party (Greenberg 1990). That the aggrieved party will seek to take
action is obvious but once the other party is aware of their partner’s perception
that an inequity exists it may, for a variety of reasons, believe it to be in its best
interests to seek to appease the aggrieved party. Indeed it is important to recognise
that a dominant customer may decide to take action to reduce a supplier’s perceived
inequity even before it becomes a significant issue (Bachrach and Baratz 1970, p.26).
The customer might for example believe that there is no alternative supplier and
therefore decides that it will be less costly to be conciliatory now than to take the
risk that at some point in the future the supplier’s sense of inequity leads to either a
breakdown of the relationship or the supplier exiting it! However, even a dominant
customer might simply perceive that the inequity that its partner is suffering is morally
unacceptable