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This paper aims to develop and validate a scale measurement of trust in long-term relations, specifically in the maintenance phase, between buyers and sellers. Relying on a cognitive conception, existing scales do not measure the affective trust occurring in the maintenance stage of the relationship.

Three surveys were conducted with purchasing managers of enterprises in various business-to-business (B2B) sectors to build a bi-dimensional measurement scale of affective trust as a sentiment of security and affective attachment. For measurement scale development, established construction procedures were followed, including qualitative and quantitative surveys. The process can be summarized as: domain specification, generation of questionnaire items, empirical survey and iterative process of scale purification based on reliability assessment and validity checks.

The results indicate satisfactory psychometric properties of the new Affective Trust Scale (ATS). Furthermore, they demonstrate the scale’s measurement invariance across business sectors. The research confirms the importance of affective aspects of trust and supports the reliability and validity of the measure. Nomological validity assessment of the scale shows that sentiment of security-based trust impacts investment in business relationships.

The ATS developed and tested in the B2B French context needs to be evaluated taking into account several limitations. First, the specific context was a sample of buyers in France experiencing lasting relationships, suggesting that an extension of the study to other countries would be desirable. Also, the ATS needs to be further validated and confirmed in other contexts, for instance, within buyer–supplier relationship intensity.

The ATS can help firms to identify key parameters in buyer–seller relationships. It is important for the seller to collect information to determine the stage of the relationship before spending money on targeting customers, as they may not be ready to broaden the scope of their contract. The ATS can be very useful for companies to assess the state of the relationship and the strength of the bond in a timely manner and, therefore, anticipate the relational orientation. Segmentation based on relational phases requires tailoring to each form of trust strategies and hence the accurate identification of the relationship phase could help to better categorize and subcategorize customers with respect to the sentiment of security and affective attachment degrees. Furthermore, an understanding of the two dimensions is useful for key account managers to adjust relationship management toward specific actions (e.g. sentiment of security and/or affective attachment). The ATS could be very useful to guide managers in taking the right decision, by focusing both on sentiment of security and affective attachment dimensions of affective trust.

Affective trust is important to B2B managers, who frequently struggle to build and maintain close relationships with customers and suppliers. This paper adds insights into the complex but important construct of trust. The scale could be used for empirical studies of affective trust in B2B relationships. It may also help marketing managers develop better relationships with partners.

The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the impact of investor sentiment on real estate investment trust (REIT) returns using direct, survey-based measures of sentiment to categorize sentiment from institutional and individual investors.

The authors provide a framework in which sentiment is classified into individual and institutional investor sentiment under the assumption that investors, depending on sophistication, react differently to the same set of information and will influence REIT prices differently. The authors employ a methodology that uses panel regression analyses and divides the sample of REITs into size and performance portfolios.

The regression results suggest that institutional investor sentiment is positively and significantly related to REIT returns contemporaneously for multiple sample specifications. These results are consistent with high levels of institutional ownership in REITs. Results also suggest that individual investor sentiment only influences small capitalization and low-α portfolios.

The findings provide more evidence on the influence of investor sentiment on security pricing even for highly regulated sectors such as the REIT industry. Investors may use changes in sentiment as signals for portfolio rebalancing and capital allocations.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of investor sentiment on the supply of trade credit, and further explores the difference of the effect of investor sentiment on the supply of trade credit in the environment of strong market competition and weak market competition.

The authors use panel estimation techniques to examine the impact of investor sentiment in the Chinese securities market on the supply of corporate trade credit.

This paper finds that investor sentiment has positive impact on trade credit through three channels of motivation, willingness and ability. At the same time, this paper finds that investor sentiment has stronger impact on enterprises in strong market competition than enterprises in weak market competition.

This paper expands the research on the influence of virtual economy on the real economy, analyzes the difference of the influence of investor sentiment on the supply of trade credit under different market competition conditions.

The paper perfects the mechanism of trade credit decision-making at this stage, and provides more evidence for the virtual economy to act on the real economy.

This paper provides a theoretical basis for the government functional departments to use the investor sentiment to play a positive role in trade credit to improve the market competition and guide the development of China’s capital market in the direction of rationalization and health.

In combination with market competition environment and industry characteristics, this paper investigates external irrational factors and studies how investor sentiment affects trade credit supply.

In the disruptive technologies era, the lack of convincing business cases on blockchain (BC) adoption about food supply chain, the existence of uncertainties and barriers to adoption due to knowledge scarcity on characteristics as well as the potentialities and risks involved in it, have triggered the need to investigate the first multinational BC adoption for food supply chain in Europe, to consider how it can guarantee knowledge for the consumption/purchase decision-making and the creation-mechanism of consciousness for sustainable behavioral choice.

The authors provide a field exploratory analysis based on customers' perceptions and real knowledge about BC (as a knowledge-constructive tool) in the food and beverage sector. This connected with the need for an informed context, favoring sustainable conscious decision-making related to both the food chain and innovation acceptance. This analysis included the use of innovation acceptance as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategic orientation through a survey- and interview-based field analysis (80 respondents).

The findings of this study can be considered as antecedents of innovation acceptance in the sector. The analysis assesses consumers' scarce knowledge and perceptions on the BC system, the scarce usage level and the higher acquiring propensity for traceable foodstuffs generating bi-directional/dimensional value, considering that consumption habits could change through security and certainty antecedents and induced knowledge provided by external technological intervention.

By trying to match innovation and the knowledge-construction need as a vehicle for acceptance, the theoretical contribution would empower the literature on food traceability from the perspective of strategic BC application through a from-knowledge-to-knowledge strategy.

The present chapter has reviewed the opportunities and limitations of the Russian Federation to situate as a leading international destination. There are significant methodological and conceptual issues during the assessment of the world countries and regions safety level. They are caused by lack of the universal assessment method of such risks, incompleteness of the risk criteria taken into consideration, subjective assessment factors, and occasional substitution of the risk factors with the political–competitive ones. Still, the safety issue is one of the most important for a modern tourist. The available information resources, providing their own safety level assessment of the world countries and regions for travellers, differ between them in terms of the selected categories, specified safety levels of the countries and regions and also in terms of understanding and details of the travel risk notion itself. But the greatest challenge for an ordinary tourist, who does not have experience in searching specialised information, is to become familiar with these information resources.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new approach to designing enterprise systems (ES). The goal is to create an information system that can be more efficient and able to contribute to a more stable and efficient corporate governance system.

The new design approach is based on a retrospective analysis of the evolution of enterprise systems and the emerging business requirements.

The new ES (Holistic Information System) does not diminish the problem of Corporate Governance (CG). The design and implementation of ES, according to modern CG principles and guidelines, can help all parties make rational decisions (through the power of logic and not through the logic of power), facilitate the market for corporate control, the flow of information and hence the efficiency of the CG system.

The new framework can help information systems designers to understand and create a more holistic system. Also, it can help stakeholders understand the role that the ES can play in the corporate governance system and exert influence on managers to adopt an information system that covers their needs as well.

It is the first attempt to merge the theory of corporate governance with the ES theory in order to formulate a new design approach.

The purpose of this article is to show that, within a process perspective, calculus is not only compliant with trust but also that trust forms are integral to its dynamics. Having demonstrated the theoretical bases of compatibility between reputation, economic interest and trust, and the necessary inclusion of a social context in business-to-business (B2B) exchange, this paper proposes a conceptual framework that will enable us to understand a multi-form concept of trust.

The approach to the topic is one of theoretical analysis and conceptual development.

This proposal indicates that the presence of calculus in the earliest stages of exchange relationships gives way to other forms of trust that are more cognitive and affective in nature. The elucidation of the evolutionary nature of trust shows that calculus and trust theory are complementary and provide, respectively, insight for the whole process.

The presented research by incorporating forms and time dimension adds theoretical insights and produces an incremental step toward better understanding of trust dynamics in industrial and business markets. The main challenge to the proposed model will be the empirical test.

This conceptualization should help managers understand trust creation better, and provide them with valuable information for understanding the evolution of relationships with suppliers. Segmentation based on relational phases requires tailoring each form of trust strategy, and, hence, accurate identification of a relationship phase could help categorize and subcategorize customers regarding calculative, cognitive or emotional dominant forms of trust.

The paper contributes to the discussion on how integrative approaches (calculative and non-calculative) improve our understanding of buyer–supplier relationships and promotes the emergence of a coherent vision of trust evolution.

Trust is an important facilitator of successful B2B relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate affect-based antecedents of both interpersonal and interorganizational trust, and their impact on the performance of buyer–supplier relationships. The authors ask two research questions: (1) What are affect-based dimensions of interpersonal and interorganizational trust? (2) How do interpersonal and interorganizational trust influence buyers’ operational performance?

The authors use data from an original survey of 156 buyer–supplier relationships between multinational enterprise subsidiaries and local suppliers in the Thai manufacturing sector to develop a structural model in which the authors test the hypotheses.

Consistent with social exchange theory and social psychology, the empirical analysis shows that affect-based dimensions at the individual level, namely, likeability, similarity and frequent social contact, and at the organizational level, namely, supplier firm willingness to customize and institutionalization of cooperation, are important for establishing trust. In addition, interpersonal trust enhances buyers’ operational performance indirectly via interorganizational trust.

Buying and selling firms may develop organizational trust by developing processes that enhance organizational trust. Individuals with purchasing or sales responsibilities may enhance trust in their personal relationship. However, such interpersonal trust needs to be translated to the organizational level to benefit organizational performance.

The findings contribute to the literature on affect-based antecedents and outcomes of trust. Specifically, the authors offer theory and empirical evidence regarding the contribution of salespersons toward affect-based dimensions of trust and its impact on buyer’s operational performance.

Considers the economic aspects of food consumption patterns by looking at the relationship between value structures and personality profiles as a means for assessing consumers′ basic need orientations, and at eating behaviour as a compensatory strategy when other‐than‐physiological needs are frustrated. Seeks to demonstrate that the concept of values is a promising tool for ascertaining the conditions under which consumer behaviour phenomena might occur. Introduces the concepts of values and compensatory eating behaviour in order to demonstrate their relevance for consumer behaviour research, and describes how these concepts can be measured. Presents some first results from an empirical study, conducted in West Germany, and concludes with some remarks on the implications of its findings.

Meals on Wheel Central Texas (MOWCTX) provides meals to more than 5,000 home-bound older adults in the Austin area every weekday. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of client-volunteer interactions to assess the social benefits clients receive and ascertain if and how loneliness and social isolation are addressed.

Observations of volunteer-client interactions, interviews with clients and surveys of clients were conducted to gain insight into clients’ experiences with MOWCTX services.

Qualitative analysis of observation and interview data revealed four non-tangible benefits clients received from MOWCTX: reduced physical risks when mobility issues are present, a daily safety check, opportunities for social contact and increased ability to maintain independence. Survey results supported these conclusions.

This research examines the impact of volunteer-client relationships on the experience of loneliness and social isolation.