The Effects of Opportunism and Trust on Buyer-Supplier Relationship: Do Commitment Types Matter?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18533/ijbsr.v4i9.593Abstract
Based on the notion that relational motives have some complicated and multi-directional interactions, this study aims to investigate direct and indirect influences among the main drivers of buyer-supplier relationship strength (RS). Data were collected from 104 buyer firms via e-mail survey. Results show that, in addition to direct effect of opportunism on trust and RS; honesty and benevolence dimensions of trust mediate the opportunism-RS relation. With the notion that different commitment types may have different buffering effects against opportunistic behavior, the study also proposes the moderating roles of affective and calculative commitment. Results reveal that while affective commitment has a moderating effect between opportunism and trust relationship; calculative commitment does not have a significant affect. The business-to-business relationship literature is advanced by a joint investigation of moderated role of two types of commitment and the mediation effects of honesty and benevolence for RS context.
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