Purpose-This study explores how Chinese and Finnish managers in cross-cultural supply-chain relationships evaluate their business partners' trustworthiness and distrustworthiness. Design/methodology/approach-Representatives of two Finnish companies and their Chinese and Finnish suppliers were interviewed to collect qualitative data from 23 managers. Findings-The Chinese managers emphasized relationship-specific, personalized trustworthiness. They highlighted personalized communication and benevolence, which manifested in respect and reciprocity, rooted in the Chinese notion of "guanxi" as personal ties. In contrast, the Finnish managers' view of trustworthiness was more associated with depersonalized organizational attributes. They emphasized the dimension of integrity, especially promise-keeping. In addition, tentative signs of trust ambivalence, as a balance between trust-and distrust-related factors, were identified for both the Chinese and the Finns. Research limitations/implications-Due to the exploratory nature of this study the validity the findings is limited to this data and context. Future studies could explore other national contexts as well as the effects of industry, market position, and position in the supply chain. Practical implications-The findings of this study bring a valuable understanding of the potential pitfalls and unique challenges in cross-border inter-firm transactions. These can enhance inter-firm trust building in a cross-cultural context. Originality/value-This study enriches the view of trust as a holistic process of simultaneous evaluation of both trustworthiness and distrustworthiness. In this process, trust ambivalence could serve as the intermediate construct between trust and distrust. These two contrary yet complementary opposites constitute a duality to be managed from the perspective of yin-yang balancing.

Purpose-This study aims to examine relational norms in cross-cultural business settings. Cross-cultural business partners may differ in their normative orientations toward relational exchange. Owing to the high extent of international trade, there is a need for developing a more nuanced understanding of cross-cultural relational exchange. Design/methodology/approach-The repertory grid method was used to elicit the personal constructs characterizing the perceptions of business-to-business (B2B) relational exchange for 22 Russian and Finnish managers. These items were further categorized into categories of relational elements drawn from relational exchange literature using a content analysis. Then, the category means of scored importance and scored evaluations of domestic and foreign business partners were tested statistically. Findings-Relational norms of flexibility, information exchange, long-term orientation, mutuality and solidarity were equally important to both Russian and Finnish managers. The importance of a business partner's ability seems to be culturally dependent. Sharing the same cultural background might have an adverse effect when evaluating poorly functioning business relations. Research limitations/implications-The validity of these findings is limited to this context and material. Future research should repeat cross-cultural comparisons of the relational norms with more data and other nationalities. Practical implications-Firms should focus on long-term orientation and mutual targets to form well-functioning cross-cultural business relationships. Originality/value-This study provides new knowledge into B2B marketing literature by revealing the role of relational norms, business partner's ability and shared cultural background on functionality of cross-cultural business relations. It also demonstrates the use of the repertory grid method in studying perceptions of relational norms.