The impact of social bonding on the buyer's loyalty, trust, satisfaction and service quality towards the seller in a business-to-business relationship.

摘要

This research investigates business-to-business marketing relationships in particular, the social relationship between buyers' key contact employees and sellers' key contact employees in service industries. Of particular interest was how these social relationships influence the buyers' organizational level (1) loyalty towards, (2) trust in, (3) satisfaction with, and (4) perceived service quality of the seller. The multilevel research examined the impact that social bonding has on the buyer's loyalty towards purchasing from the seller, trust towards the seller, satisfaction with the seller and perceptions of the service quality provided by the seller to the buyer in a business-to-business relationship, while controlling for structural and economic bonds. To address this question embeddedness theory, social exchange theory, marketing exchange theory, and attribution theory was employed. Using partial least squares analysis, this research demonstrated that social bonds, controlling for structural and economic bonds, significantly impacted the buyer's loyalty, trust, satisfaction, and perceptions of service quality towards the seller.