The Effect of Ethical Characteristics among Business Partners on Trust and Commitment: Focusing on Supermarket and Partner Companies

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate what ethical and unethical actions may occur in the distribution channels that constitute between supermarket and partners, and how they affect the relationship characteristics with their partn ers. Research design, data, and methodology: In this study, company E’s partner companies were selected as the population, and 220 companies, about 14% of the 1,600 partners who had long-term relationships, excluding company E’s temporary trading companies, were selected for the study. In addition, multiple regression analysis was conducted to analyze the relationship between trust and commitment in transaction and its predecessors, and the relationship between trust and commitment was analyzed through simple regression. Results: Overall, it was found that there was a significant relationship between trust and preceding factors, but the relationship between binding and preceding factors was judged that two paths (transaction justice, communication) were not sign ifican t. In particular, it was foun d that tran saction justice had a sign ifican t effect on trust, but it was not found to have a direct effect on commitment. It was found that the employee’s ethical attitude exerts a negative influence on trust and commitment. Implications: This study provided suggestions on what distribution channel factors should be carefully managed to increase trust and commitment between corporate partners. It is also meaningful in that it empirically verified the relationship between ethical factors and relationship quality between corporate partners included in the distribution channel.