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Drawing on the social presence theory, this study aims to explore how supplier–customer social media interactions influence supplier observers’ trust in the customers and what mechanisms contribute to variation in trust experience.

A total of 36 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Chinese suppliers using WeChat for business-to-business interactions. Data were analyzed in three steps: open coding, axial coding and selective coding.

Findings reveal that varied trust is based not only on the categories of social presence of interaction – whether social presence is embedded in informative interactions – but also on the perceived selectivity in social presence. Observer suppliers who experience selectivity during social and affective interactions create a perception of hidden information and an unhealthy relationship atmosphere, and report a sense of emotional vulnerability, thus eroding cognitive and affective trust.

The findings contribute new understandings to social presence theory by exploring the social presence of interactions in a supplier–supplier–customer triad and offer valuable insights into business-to-business social media literature by adopting a suppliers’ viewpoint to unpack the mechanisms of how social presence of interaction positively and negatively influences suppliers’ trust and behavioral responses.

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.

Manufacturer price reduction pressure on suppliers is an important contributor to helping a manufacturer maintain a strong competitive position by keeping costs low. The benefits of trusting supplier working relations also help strengthen a manufacturer's competitive position. The purpose of this paper is to determine if manufacturer price reduction pressure and trusting working relations with the pressured suppliers, typically considered to be mutually exclusive, can co‐exist.

A structural equation modeling approach was used to analyze data covering 946 production buying situations involving 279 suppliers and six NA automotive OEMs.

Manufacturer price reduction pressure and trusting working relations with the pressured suppliers, are not mutually exclusive, they can co‐exist.

The research found that it is not the pressure that impacts the manufacturer – supplier relations, but rather it is the manner by which the manufacturer goes about pressuring its suppliers that impacts its supplier working relations. The research, however, does not directly address how a manufacturer can achieve both ends simultaneously.

Manufacturers no longer have to choose between exerting price reduction pressures on suppliers or working to achieve trusting relations with suppliers. They can successfully do both. At the same time, suppliers must recognize that these conditions may occur and when applied simultaneously ultimately benefit both parties.

This research adds to the critically under‐researched B2B pricing processes and pricing impact areas, while helping to influence managerial actions, an area in which academic B2B research is considered to be lacking.

This study aims to explore the antecedents and consequences of reliance and its relationship with trust in the context of business-to-business (B2B) branding. The study also explores the above relationships in various B2B contexts.

Survey data of 135 respondents from different B2B firms was analyzed, and the proposed theoretical model was validated using partial least square structural equation modeling technique followed by multigroup analysis.

The results suggest that commitment, management capability and innovation capability are positively related with reliance, while trust acts as mediator between commitment–reliance relationships. Moreover, while both reliance and trust lead to B2B brand image, reliance has higher relationship strength. Furthermore, reliance mediates the trust–brand image relationship too.

The paper contributes to the literature of reliance and its role in B2B brand image by providing newer insights about the antecedents and consequences of reliance and its relationship with trust.

The findings provide managers with key insights for creating B2B brand image using reliance and trust by focusing on capabilities and commitment.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few papers in B2B marketing which focuses on the antecedents of reliance and relative importance of trust and reliance.

This paper aims to examine how suppliers doing business with customers in emerging industrial markets can leverage their innovativeness to foster trust and commitment toward maximizing customer adoption behaviors.

Based on commitment-trust theory, this research uses survey data collected from a large sample of Chinese business-to-business executives, which were then analyzed using three-stage least squares simultaneous estimation models and PROCESS.

The results show that supplier innovativeness can help customers build trust in a supplier. Consequently, a reciprocal commitment is forged among customers that manifest in favorable adoption decisions, including a higher willingness to pay premium prices. Notably, this approach is beneficial when robust interfirm communications are difficult to establish.

Innovation decisions in interfirm relationships are important for suppliers doing business in emerging markets. This is because customer adoptions in such settings can foster enduring relational market-based assets and other competitive advantages that can improve supplier performance. Unfortunately, the understanding of how interfirm relationships influence innovation-adoption decisions in emerging markets is lacking. The findings of this research shed light on how suppliers interested in entering emerging markets can interact with customer firms in such settings to maximize favorable adoption outcomes.

Buyers and suppliers often perceive relationship governance mechanisms, such as trust and contractual fairness, in different ways. These differences in perception create an extra layer of complexity that is often ignored in the extant literature. This study adds to the understanding of how perceived asymmetries in trust and contractual fairness, two key relationship governance mechanisms, impact relational rents. This study also analyzes how boundary spanners aid managers to deal with these perceived asymmetries.

Based on survey data of 103 buyer–supplier dyads from a single global manufacturer of industrial equipment, the authors test hypotheses of perceived asymmetries in trust and contractual fairness, as well as the moderating effect of boundary spanners, on relational rents.

This research challenges the belief that asymmetries negatively impact or lead to unstable buyer–supplier relationships. Furthermore, it explains how preferential treatment and length of the relationship could reduce the impact of asymmetric perceptions.

This study stresses that open communication, which considers different viewpoints, helps to overcome the negative differences in attitude and perception. In addition, the authors found that long-term relationships seem to be far more resilient in dealing with asymmetries and that preferential treatments are best applied in (approximately) symmetric relationships in terms of contractual fairness.

While studies on buyer–supplier relationships often assume symmetric perceptions of governance mechanisms, asymmetric perceptions are far more prominent in reality. This study aims to improve one’s understanding of the impact of these asymmetries as well as how boundary spanners can affect these perceptions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships among suppliers’ trust and commitment, transaction-specific investment, switching cost, and customer involvement within the context of relational governance mechanism and the social exchange theory.

The authors use survey data from 214 Chinese manufacturing firms and employ the structural equation model to verify the conceptual model.

Relational governance benefits customer involvement. Transaction-specific investment mediates the relationship between trust and commitment of suppliers. Switching costs negatively moderate the relationship between suppliers’ trust and customer involvement, but positively moderate the relationship between suppliers’ commitment and customer involvement.

The authors focus on two key elements of relationship, namely, trust and commitment of suppliers, but neglect other relational factors, such as relational norms and interdependence.

These findings broaden the understanding and present new directions for the implementation of customer involvement from the perspective of relational governance and social exchange theory.

The purpose of this paper is to explore empirically how a distributor's trust in a supplier and its use of control mechanisms affect the values it gains from the relationship.

Factor analysis and a structural equation model were used to test the framework in a sample of 251 distributors in the household appliances industry in China.

The findings show that a distributor's honesty trust in a supplier enhances the direct value gained through the use of both contract and relational norms, but hinders and promotes the indirect value gained through the use of contract and relational norms respectively. A distributor's benevolence trust promotes the direct and indirect value gained through the use of relational norms, but impedes the direct value and enhances the indirect value gained through the use of contracts.

A distributor's trust in a supplier may involve competence trust besides honesty trust and benevolence trust. Hence, the framework can be further studied in the situations where the distributor's trust in the supplier's competence is considered. Moreover, the sample of the empirical study only comes from the household appliances industry, and research in future may be extended to include multiple industries.

The paper may help distributors choose and use the proper control mechanism as well as foster a suitable kind of trust in suppliers to realize the objectives of maximizing the relationship value.

The results permit an in‐depth look into the effects of trust and control mechanisms on the relational values in a channel relationship context.

In the buyer-supplier relationship of a high-technology enterprise, the concepts of trust and risk are closely intertwined. Entering into a buyer-supplier relationship inherently involves a degree of risk, since there is always an opportunity for one of the parties to act opportunistically. Purchasing and supply managers play an important role in reducing the firm's risk profile, and must make decisions about whether or not to enter into, or remain in, a relationship with a supplier based on a subjective assessment of trust and risk.

In this paper, the authors seek to explore how trust in the buyer-supplier relationship can be quantitatively modeled in the presence of risk. The authors develop a model of trust between a buyer and supplier as a risk-based decision, in which a buyer decides to place trust in a supplier, who may either act cooperatively or opportunistically. The authors use a case study of intellectual property (IP) piracy in the electronics industry to illustrate the conceptual discussion and model development.

The authors produce a generalizable model that can be used to aid in decision-making and risk analysis for potential supply-chain partnerships, and is both a theoretical and practical innovation. However, the model can benefit a variety of high-technology enterprises.

While the topic of trust is widely discussed, few studies have attempted to derive a quantitative model to support trust-based decision making. This paper advanced the field of supply chain management by developing a model which relates risk and trust in the buyer-supplier relationship.

This study sought to examine the extent to which outsourced contracts, buyer-supplier trust and supplier opportunistic behavior explain supplier performance in Ugandan Public Procuring and Disposing Entities (PDEs). This study was prompted by reports of long lead times, failure to match specifications, late deliveries, poor quality of services delivered, contract violations, and increased supplier cheating. Cross sectional data from 116 central government PDEs concerning outsourced contracts was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Hierarchical regression was used to indicate what happens to a model that was developed as part of this research as different predictor variables are introduced. The findings revealed that outsourced contracts, buyer-supplier trust, and supplier opportunistic behavior are significant predictors of supplier performance. The study has both managerial and policy implications which are discussed in this paper.