Participaciones y ponencias en Congresos nacionales e internacionales

The trust construct was measured with a single-factor scale adapted from Larzelere and Huston (1980) by Morgan and Hunt (1994) to tap into what they regarded as the major facets of trust; viz., namely reliability, integrity and confidence. In the original work, Larzelere and Huston (1980) made the distinction between dyadic and general trust, arguing that the former specifically refers to benevolence and honesty towards an individual, whereas the latter refers to the character of people in aggregate terms.

Specifically, their scale was capable of capturing dyadic trust, and forms the basis of the Morgan and Hunt (1994) work. Their measure used a Likert-type scale (1 =

‘strongly disagree’ and 7 = ‘strongly agree’) and results of their study yielded an alpha index of 0.949 for the composite scale, indicating a very high level of reliability. All seven of the original items were used in the current research setting, though some modifications were deemed necessary to both the semantics of each item and the scale anchors. The seven-point scale was extended to 10 points to remain consistent with all other scales in the research instrument. Most relational studies in marketing appear to broadly agree on both the definition and conceptualisation of trust but differ in their operational measure of the construct (Geyskens, Steenkamp &

Kumar 1998). Therefore, only key studies⁷ have been considered in this research.

Given that trust has been portrayed as a multi-faceted construct within the extant marketing literature, attempts have been made to develop and use scales that reflect the variety of conceptualisations on offer. Interestingly, most literature appears to indicate the trust construct to be multi-dimensional in nature but it has been operationalised as a single factor. There have been a large number of studies devoted to trust within the marketing literature, but a summary of those pertinent to this research setting is provided in Table 3.8 below.

7 Geyskens, Steenkamp, and Kumar (1998) identify 24 key studies related to trust. The majority of them appear to conceptualise trust as a two-dimensional construct comprising the dimensions of ‘honesty’ and ‘benevolence’.

157

Table 3.8 : Summary of the Measures of Salesperson Trust

Scale Source Context Factors &

items (N) grounded in trust-based relationships can be attributed to the fact that trust encourages marketers to (1) resist short-term alternatives in favour of the expected long-term relationship benefits, (2) work at preserving relational ‘investments’ through cooperation and (3) view associated risk-taking activity as prudent because trust helps reduce the suspicion that the other party will act opportunistically. Therefore, it is not surprising that in his synthesis of the empirical relations literature Wilson (1995) identifies trust as the most crucial relational variable in marketing, as well as being the fundamental building block in the relationship development process. Although conceptual in nature, the work of Dwyer, Schurr and Oh (1987) tends to epitomise the

158

role that trust plays in the development and nurturing of close marketing relationships.

By drawing specifically upon the work of Scanzoni (1979) they ground a conceptual model of relationship development in social exchange theory; thereby corroborating the role of trust within social entities characterised by high levels of interdependence and interaction.

Their study reveals, from the perspective of developing relations that trust usually manifests during the early stages to act as the essential ingredient in defining the purpose of the relationship. By providing the common ground between the parties, trust tends to propagate relationship-building activities in terms of better communication and higher levels of social bonding between parties and, thereby, also acting to shape the future of the relationship (Wilson 1995). Dwyer, Schurr and Oh (1987) point out that trust is an important concept in helping to enhance solidarity between parties and has the effect of causing the parties to take higher levels of risk within the relationship. As risk-taking stems directly from the mutual dependence between parties, this tends to support the view that trust is regarded as an integral feature of all human relations (Larzelere & Huston 1980). In short, given that without trust society and societal entities would simply disintegrate, long-term marketing relationships based upon the notion of using trusting behaviour towards others helps foster longevity between exchange partners. Das and Teng (1998) suggest that trust has been interpreted as a control concept in the literature and stems from two perspectives. On the one hand trust has been referred to in broad terms as one’s belief or expectation about the likelihood of a desired action being performed by the trustee.

On the other hand, it is narrowly defined as the trustor’s assessment of the goodwill and reliability of the trustor; central to this latter definition is the concept of risk.

Salesperson trust is measured using the question ‘Please indicate your level of agreement with the following in relation to the store that you would (or will) buy your laptop from’ (Q10). Initially the items in this question represented general trust. Most trust items revolved around salesperson likeability, retail store image and relational orientation. Then it was decided to consider only trust in the salesperson. The logic of having trust in the salesperson is that he or she is a living entity, whereas relational orientation and retail store image are perceived values generated from conceptual behaviour. There were 22 items in Q10. After the analysis, only six items were

159

selected as having a loading sufficiently good at α = 0.825; ‘The salesperson in this retail store is friendly and approachable’ (Q10.6), ‘The salesperson of this store is sincere’, (Q10.7), ‘The salesperson of this store is honest’ (Q10.8), ‘I felt very little risk was involved when dealing with the salesperson in this store’ (Q10.9), ‘The salesperson of this store has been frank in dealing with us’ (Q10.10) and ‘The salesperson of this store does not make false claims’ (Q10.11). These questions directly tap into consumers’ views of salesperson trust. The result of the variable and its item analysis helped to understand to what extent consumers trust salespeople. The variable is complementary, and supports the salesperson likeability variable.