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Propensity to trust salespeople: A contingent multilevel-multisource examination

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  • Friend, Scott B.
  • Johnson, Jeff S.
  • Sohi, Ravipreet S.

Abstract

As sales strategies continue to shift toward long-term partnerships, the influence of trust between buyers and sellers as a building block that facilitates relationship development is increasingly important. While considerable work has been done on the formation of trust, scant research exists on how characteristics of the salesperson and customer jointly influence customer trust in the salesperson. In this paper, the authors investigate the role of customers' existing propensity to trust salespeople in determining their trust of salespeople in newly-formed business-to-business (B2B) relationships. The authors also examine the interactive effects of salesperson characteristics – relational customer orientation and adaptive selling – which moderate this relationship. Multilevel-multisource data from 131 newly-acquired customer key informants and 47 B2B salespeople are utilized to assess the model. Findings show a mixture of salesperson characteristics that accentuate and attenuate the association between customers' preexisting tendencies to trust salespeople and their actual trust in the salesperson.

Suggested Citation

  • Friend, Scott B. & Johnson, Jeff S. & Sohi, Ravipreet S., 2018. "Propensity to trust salespeople: A contingent multilevel-multisource examination," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 1-9.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:83:y:2018:i:c:p:1-9
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.09.048
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Xiao, Lin & Zhang, Yucheng & Fu, Bin, 2019. "Exploring the moderators and causal process of trust transfer in online-to-offline commerce," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 214-226.
    2. Stephanie M. Mangus & Eli Jones & Judith Anne Garretson Folse & Shrihari Sridhar, 2020. "The interplay between business and personal trust on relationship performance in conditions of market turbulence," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(6), pages 1138-1155, November.
    3. Wang, Wei & Liang, Qiaozhuan & Mahto, Raj V. & Deng, Wei & Zhang, Stephen X., 2020. "Entrepreneurial entry: The role of social media," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    4. Lifang Shu & Haiying Wei & Leiqing Peng, 2019. "Making the Customer Orientation of Salespeople Unsustainable—The Moderating Effect of Emotional Exhaustion," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15, January.
    5. Shobha Mishra & Vibhuti Tripathi, 2022. "Theoretical framework on state-of-the-art sales ethics in marketing," International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management, Springer;The Society for Reliability, Engineering Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM),India, and Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, vol. 13(1), pages 57-78, February.
    6. Keshavarz, Ali Reza & Gölgeci, Ismail, 2023. "The value of the sales function: A multilevel examination of the effect of strategic marketing ambidexterity and industry contingencies," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    7. Eriksson, Kent & Hermansson, Cecilia & Jonsson, Sara, 2019. "The viability of the bank advisory service business model - effects of customers' trust, satisfaction and loyalty on client-level performance," Working Paper Series 19/4, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management & Banking and Finance.

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