Trust and relationship commitment between direct selling distributors and customers

Abstract

Jau-Shyong Wang

With the trend and progress in technological development, relationship marketing is a popular and important marketing concept. Relationship marketing does not only provide different product lines to different types of customers, it also establishes stable long-term relationships with customers to obtain customer’s lifetime value. In the theory of relationship marketing, trust and commitment usually appear in a pair and are inseparable. If one of these variables is neglected, the relationship of both parties might only be a transition period agreement. This study referred to the key mediating variables (KMV) of Morgan and Hunt (1994) and established a trust-relationship commitment model between customers and direct distributors. This study adopts direct selling customers as subjects and collects 172 valid questionnaires. The Partial Least Squares (PLS) method is applied. Analytical results indicate that opportunistic behavior and shared values affect cognitive trust and emotional trust. Similarly, cognitive trust and emotional trust positively affect customer relationship commitment.