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The interplay between business and personal trust on relationship performance in conditions of market turbulence

  • Original Empirical Research
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Abstract

Extant research examining interpersonal trust in business-to-business (B2B) buyer–seller relationships focuses on its multidimensionality, mainly from a business perspective. Our research captures an element of business relationships that is heretofore under-examined: the personal side of the relationship between the buyer and seller. We examine the interplay between both business and personal trust on performance in the relationship, namely analyzing customer relationship satisfaction and customer loyalty. We also test our model using perceived market turbulence as a moderating variable since turbulence in the marketplace could strain the relationship between the buyer and seller and affect the strength of the statistical relationships between business and personal trust on performance in the relationship.

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Notes

  1. Consistent with the prior literature, we conceptualize customer loyalty to include both commitment to the relationship/focal salesperson and loyalty behaviors, such as the likelihood to recommend and repurchase intentions (Ganesh et al. 2000; Kamran-Disfani et al. 2017; Morgan et al. 2005; Morgan and Rego 2006).

  2. We thank the Editor and Review Team for this constructive suggestion.

  3. By definition, this does not include the focal salesperson’s data.

  4. Table 4 that we includes main effect models for academic completion, however, we only discuss the results of the final models (i.e. Model 1c for loyalty and Model 3c in satisfaction).

  5. We thank an anonymous reviewer for identifying this opportunity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University, One Bear Place #98007, Waco, TX, 76798, USA

    Stephanie M. Mangus

  2. Mays Business School, Reynolds and Reynolds Sales Leadership Institute, Texas A&M University, 440 Wehner Building, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Eli Jones

  3. E.J. Ourso College of Business, Louisiana State University, 2111 Business Education Complex, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Judith Anne Garretson Folse

  4. Mays Business School, Reynolds and Reynolds Sales Leadership Institute, Texas A&M University, 220V Wehner Building, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Shrihari Sridhar

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  1. Stephanie M. Mangus
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  2. Eli Jones
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  3. Judith Anne Garretson Folse
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  4. Shrihari Sridhar
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Correspondence to Stephanie M. Mangus.

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Appendix 1

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Table 5 Measurement scales
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Mangus, S.M., Jones, E., Folse, J.A.G. et al. The interplay between business and personal trust on relationship performance in conditions of market turbulence. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 48, 1138–1155 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-020-00722-6

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