Trust in Business to Business Relationships: An Evaluation of its Status

Abstract

The concept of trust has been used in a growing number of empirical and theoretical marketing studies of business to business relationships. Examination of a number of in¯uential studies indicates a lack of clarity in their conceptualization of trust. The nature of this lack of clarity is examined and it is proposed that there are a number of features of trust which account should be taken of when conducting such studies.

The SMEs’ perspective of trust in a B2B relationship

“…The definition presented by Moorman et al (1993) is subsequently endorsed in various studies (Ganesan, 1994;Doney and Cannon, 1997;Blois, 1999), with acknowledgement given to the role of benevolence in diminishing vulnerability in situations characterised by uncertainty and risk. This is especially the case within the banking environment (Ennew et al, 2011;Järvinen, 2014).…”

“…In emphasising benevolence, Blois (1999) and Mouzas et al (2007) suggest customer reliance alone on their service provider will not suffice in generating trust. The former further suggests that if there is confidence of service conditions being fulfilled, this alone will not necessarily lead to trust, with trust only being realised if the service provider recognisably protects the client in the face of potential business problems, thereby diminishing any associated vulnerability.…”

“Trust but verify”? The performance implications of verification strategies in trusting relationships

“…Similarly, others (e.g., Geyskens et al 1998;Grayson et al 2008) define trust as a belief that an exchange partner is benevolent and honest. Conceptions of trust common to both the interfirm and interpersonal domains capture the widely held view that trust involves the willingness to rely upon another, which has as its basis an expectation that the motives, intentions and behavior of the trusted partner are worthy of one's trust (i.e., they are trustworthy) (Blois 1999). Defined in this fashion, trust may be viewed as existing along a continuum with higher levels of trust exhibited through stronger views as to the trustworthiness of an individual or institution, based upon calculations of their relevant motives, intentions and behaviors.…”

“…In these circumstances, information supplements and fills in gaps created by trust (cf. Blois 1999).…”

“…Our global measure of performance may not fully capture the extensive aspects of this construct-or the effects of trust and information strategies on other dimensions of performance (e.g., efficiency aspects such as transaction costs and other aspects of effectiveness). The measurement of some constructs may also have benefitted with input from multiple respondents or supplier side measures (Blois 1999). Future research might address these and other limitations of this study and identify other insights about the nature of trust in exchange.…”