Influences and Consequences of Interpersonal Trust

Abstract

Over the past 15 years relationship marketing has become a key focus to both practitioners and academics. During that period the focus of extensive conceptual and empirical work has been on the development and maintenance of marketing relationships. These studies have examined various relationship components including, but not limited to: relationship development (e.g., Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh 1987; Gundlach, Achrol, and Mentzer 1995); relationship quality (e.g., Crosby, Evans, and Cowles 1990; Kumar, Scheer, and Steenkamp 1995); continuity and commitment (e.g., Anderson and Weitz 1989; Morgan and Hunt 1994; Gundlach, et al. 1995); relational norms (e.g., Noordeweir, John, and Nevin 1990; Heide and John 1992); and trust (e.g., Anderson and Narus 1990; Morgan and Hunt 1994; Ganesan 1995; Doney and Cannon 1997; Smith and Barclay 1998). The domain of relationship marketing covers relationships within and outside the organization and in vertical and lateral relationships (Morgan and Hunt 1994). The majority of the research today has been conducted on external relationships relating to supplier and buyer partnerships. Limited work has been done to look at internal relationships particularly in the sales management area. This paper looks at internal relationships between salespeople and their manager.