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Factors Affecting Trust in Market Research Relationships

Christine Moorman¹; Rohit Deshpandé²; Gerald Zaltman³

¹ Assistant Professor of Marketing, Graduate School of Business, University of Wisconsin—Madison. · ² Professor of Marketing, Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, Dartmouth College. · ³ Professor of Marketing, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University.

Building on previous work suggesting that trust is critical in facilitating exchange relationships, the authors describe a comprehensive theory of trust in market research relationships. This theory focuses on the factors that determine users’ trust in their researchers, including individual, interpersonal, organizational, interorganizational/interdepartmental, and project factors. The theory is tested in a sample of 779 users. Results indicate that the interpersonal factors are the most predictive of trust. Among these factors, perceived researcher integrity, willingness to reduce research uncertainty, confidentiality, expertise, tactfulness, sincerity, congeniality, and timeliness are most strongly associated with trust. Among the remaining factors, the formalization of the user's organization, the culture of the researcher's department or organization, the research organization's or department's power, and the extent to which the research is customized also affect trust. These findings generally do not change across different types of dyadic relationships.

DOI

10.1177/002224299305700106

Volume

57 (1)

Pages

81-101

Language

en

Export

BibTeX

Sources

crossref