to have no effect
The main objective of this study was to explore the effects of the different types of trust and commitment on supplier satisfaction. It is found that only trusting belief and the commitment types combined have an effect on supplier satisfaction. Because previous research already found a direct link between trust, commitment and supplier satisfaction, this finding was expected. However, the sub-types of commitment (affective and instrumental) have no individual effect on supplier satisfaction. A possible explanation for this could be that the suppliers do not have an emotional attachment with the employees of the buying organisation. The questions from the questionnaire regarding affective commitment are about identification and emotional connection with the buying organisation, which is what affective commitment is about. An example is the question: “I have a personal and emotional attachment with the buyer.” It could thus be the case that the suppliers only have a business connection instead of an emotional connection. The assumption that affective commitment has a bigger impact than instrumental commitment on supplier satisfaction is thus not correct; because both types separately do not have a significant effect on supplier satisfaction, affective commitment cannot have a bigger impact. This is an opposing view from previous research, who state that affective commitment correlates more strongly with any given outcome measure173. The two commitment types have no individual effect, but combined they do have a significant effect indicating that both the types of commitment need to be present to have a positive effect on supplier satisfaction. As mentioned in paragraph 3.3 opposite views on this subject was found in literate. The outcome of this study supports previous research by Somers (2009), Gellatly et al. (2006) and Wasti (2005) who all consistently stated that the combined influence of commitment on outcome variables is greater than when one type of commitment is present174, but disagrees with previous research done by H. S. Becker (1960) and Allen and Meyer (1990) who declare that the types can substitute each other.
173
See Meyer and Herscovitch (2001), p.311. 174
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Therefore, according to this study a complementary effect exists for the different types of commitment and not a substitute effect.
The finding regarding trusting belief and trusting intention is more outstanding. Previous research suggest that trusting belief leads to trusting intention; without trusting belief there would be no trusting intention175. Therefore, it was expected that trusting intention was the mediating variable between trusting belief and supplier satisfaction. The PLS path model indeed shows that trusting belief leads to trusting intention, but is also shows that trusting belief has a positive significant effect on supplier satisfaction and trusting intention does not. This indicates that trusting intention is not a mediating variable between trusting belief and supplier satisfaction, because it does not have an individual significant effect. A possible explanation for this can be found in the nature of the types of trust. Trusting belief is about whether one actually believes that the other party is trustworthy and is considered the core of trust176, while trusting intention is more calculative in nature and is regarding the willingness of one party to rely on another party based on the notion that the other party will not exploit this vulnerability177. The reason that trusting intention does not have a significant effect on supplier satisfaction could be because it is based on willing to trust, instead of believing there is trust like with trusting belief. It becomes clearer when looking at the sub-components of trusting intention and trusting belief in Table 10, this is also explained more in detail in paragraph 2.2.2.
Trusting intention178 Trusting belief179 - Potential negative consequences
- Dependence - Feelings of security - Situation specific content - Lack of reliance of control
- Benevolence - Honesty - Competence - Predictability
Table 10: Sub-components of trusting intention and trusting belief.
175
See Dwyer et al. (1987); Mayer et al. (1995), p.713; Lin and Wang (2006), p.277. 176
See McKnight and Chervany (1996), p. 27. 177
See McKnight and Chervany (1996), p. 27; Mayer et al. (1995), p.711. 178
See McKnight and Chervany (1996), p. 27-30. 179
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The sub-components of trusting intention are more about the trusting party, for example with ‘feelings of security’; the trusting party has to feel secure or he/she will not trust the other party. The sub-components of trusting belief are more about the relationship between the two trusting parties. For example ‘honesty’; both parties have to be honest for each of them to believe they can trust the other party. The following definition of supplier satisfaction highlight the importance of the relationship and fairness between buyer and supplier: “The feeling of equity with the relationship no matter what power imbalance exists”180
and “supplier satisfaction is a supplier’s feeling of fairness with regard to buyer’s incentives and supplier’s contributions”181
. Because supplier satisfaction is really about the relationship between the two parties, it can be linked to the sub-components of trusting belief more than the sub-components of trusting intention, as they are more about the belief in the relationship.
Additionally, the measurement of the questionnaire questions of trusting intention and trusting belief do not match the definitions in the literature. The measurement of trusting belief should be more about the trust in general, while trusting intention should be about the willingness to trust. In hindsight this is different than what was measured; the questions about trusting belief were close to the general trust measure and the questions about trusting intention were more regarding dependency and capability. An example is the following question: ‘Overall, the other party is capable and proficient’. This question measures capabilities, not trusting intention. All the questions in the questionnaire can be found in appendix A. This indicates that the questions for trusting intention do not measure what was supposed to be measured and could thus be another cause for why trusting intention does not have a significant effect on supplier satisfaction. The division and measurement of trusting intention and trusting belief needs more exploration and will be further discussed in the future research possibilities.
Furthermore, beforehand it was expected that there might be a complementary or substitute effect for trusting intention and commitment, after the analysis it became clear that nor a complementary nor a substitute effect exists for the two variables. Hence, it was decided to test whether such an effect exists between trusting belief and commitment since those two variables were the only ones with a significant effect on supplier satisfaction. The polynomial regression revealed a significant effect for the slope along trusting belief and
180
Benton and Maloni (2005), p.5. 181
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commitment, meaning that trusting belief and commitment have a complementary effect on supplier satisfaction. It also found that trusting belief has a bigger effect than commitment on the complementary effect. No further substitute effect has been found.