The Effects of Organizational Differences and Trust on the Effectiveness of Selling Partner Relationships

Selling alliances that are formed to cooperatively develop and maintain customer relationships are among the new organizational forms that marketing managers utilize for competitive advantage. To be successful, these alliances require sales representatives from allied organizations to work effectively as selling partners. The authors develop a trust-based model of effective selling partner relationships and test it in the context of the computer industry. Partial Least Squares analysis of 103 dyadic relationships found that organizational differences were modest predictors of three dimensions of mutual perceived trustworthiness, which in turn differentially affected three trusting behaviors. Trusting behaviors were found to have a somewhat greater effect on perceived task performance than on mutual satisfaction, whereas dimensions of trustworthiness had both direct and indirect effects on satisfaction. The authors discuss the managerial and theoretical implications of these results.