The Commitment-Trust TheoryDrawing on the political economy paradigm, Thorelli (1986, p. 38) maintains, “Power is the central concept in network analysis” because its “mere existence” can “condition others.” In contrast, keeping in mind that roughly one- third of such ventures as strategic alliances are outright failures (Sherman 1992), we argue that what should be central to understanding relationship marketing is whatever distinguishes productive, effective, relational exchanges from those that are unproductive and ineffective that is, whatever produces relationship marketing successes instead of failures. Though there are no doubt many contextual factors that contribute to the success or failure of specific relation¬ship marketing efforts, we theorize that the presence of relationship commitment and trust is central to successful relationship marketing, not power and its ability to ‘ ‘condition others.” Commitment and trust are “key” because they encourage marketers to (1) work at preserving relation¬ship investments by cooperating with exchange partners, (2) resist attractive short-term alternatives in favor of the expected long-term benefits of staying with existing partners, and (3) view potentially high-risk actions as being prudent because of the belief that their partners will not act opportunistically. Therefore, when both commitment and trust not just one or the other are present, they produce out-comes that promote efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness. In short, commitment and trust lead directly to cooperative behaviors that are conducive to relationship marketing success.Our theory implies what we label the key mediating variable (KMV) model of relationship marketing (Figure 2), which focuses on one party in the relational exchange and that party’s relationship commitment and trust. Because we hypothesize that relationship commitment and trust are key constructs, we position them as mediating variables be¬tween five important antecedents (i.e., relationship termination costs, relationship benefits, shared values, communication, and opportunistic behavior) and five outcomes (i.e., ac-quiescence, propensity to leave, cooperation, functional conflict, and decision-making uncertainty).
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