Abstract In buyer-supplier relationships, salespeople engage in behaviors that buyers may (or may not) view as deceptive. Despite the salesperson’s underlying miscreant or innocent motives, buyers have a difficult time attributing the intentionality of salesperson behaviors after the fact. While extant research has explicated various governance mechanisms to mitigate the occurrence of opportunistic behaviors a priori, scholarship is not as well-versed in understanding (a) the relational factors that influence the buyer’s interpretation of debatably opportunistic salesperson behaviors and (b) the buyer’s retributive response within the ongoing relationship. To bring clarity to these issues, the authors examine relationship factors that influence the likelihood of perceived salesperson opportunism following equivocal salesperson acts. Utilizing data from industrial buyers in the U.S. healthcare industry, this study shows that buyer specific investments are related positively to attributions of salesperson guile, whereas contractual agreements are related negatively to attributions of guile. Relationship solidarity moderates these effects. Further, we find that attributions of salesperson guile lead to perceived salesperson opportunism, which in turn results in buyers lowering their expectations of relationship continuity and increasing their retributive responses. We corroborate these findings with cross-sectional survey data from a sample of industrial buyers. Collectively, these findings hold implications with regard to the role of the buyer’s attribution of salesperson guile for a specific behavior as a determinant of perceived opportunism in general, while also outlining conditions under which buyers are inclined to engage in retributive opportunism.

中文翻译：

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评估模棱两可的销售人员行为及其对买卖双方关系质量的影响

摘要 在买方-供应商关系中，销售人员的行为可能（或可能不会）被买方视为具有欺骗性。尽管销售人员的潜在动机是恶意或无辜的，但买家很难在事后归因于销售人员行为的故意性。虽然现有的研究已经解释了各种治理机制来先验地减轻机会主义行为的发生，但学术界并不那么精通（a）影响买方对有争议的机会主义销售人员行为的解释的关系因素和（b）买方的报复性行为正在进行的关系中的反应。为了澄清这些问题，作者研究了影响销售人员在模棱两可的行为后感知到的机会主义的可能性的关系因素。本研究利用来自美国医疗保健行业的工业买家的数据，表明特定于买方的投资与销售人员诡计的归因呈正相关，而合同协议与诡诈的归因呈负相关。关系团结缓和了这些影响。此外，我们发现销售员诡计的归因会导致感知到的销售员机会主义，进而导致买家降低他们对关系连续性的期望并增加他们的报复性反应。我们用来自工业买家样本的横截面调查数据证实了这些发现。总的来说，这些发现对买方对特定行为的销售人员诡计的归因作为一般感知机会主义的决定因素的作用具有影响，