Towards a cross-cultural typologgy of trust in B2B food trade

Purpose – This paper aims to develop a hierarchical typology of trust elements for business-to-business trade among European companies in the food sector. Design/methodology/approach – The paper integrates desk research literature study and a qualitative survey of food industry companies. An extensive literature review about inter-organizational trust lays a foundation for designing a draft typology based on previous studies, with special attention paid to the influence of culture. Fine-tuning and validation of the typology is achieved through an exploratory field study based on 18 qualitative in-depth interviews with key informants in five EU countries, involving practitioners from the fresh fruit and vegetable, grain, meat and olive supply chains. Findings – A detailed typology of trust is developed. Although it is highly specific to the food industry, it is designed to be neutral to culture and sector, thus allowing the identification of differences in culture when dealing with trust building elements in different sectors in the food supply chain. Research limitations/implications – Since the buyer's perspective is adopted in this paper, further research is needed to validate the typology on the seller side. The typology developed here must also be tested in practice, for instance within a descriptive research quantitative study, aimed at quantifying the relative importance of the different trust elements. Practical implications – The typology stimulates the consideration of cross-cultural or cross-sector differences in the salience of trust attributes and its construction process confirms that reputation management is an extremely important determinant of success or failure. It can serve as a checklist for any company that is interested in improving its relationships with suppliers or buyers. Originality/value – The paper adds to the body of knowledge about inter-organizational trust, providing researchers with a useful tool for conducting experimental research on trust creation mechanism

Towards a cross-cultural typologgy of trust in B2B food trade

Purpose – This paper aims to develop a hierarchical typology of trust elements for business-to-business trade among European companies in the food sector. Design/methodology/approach – The paper integrates desk research literature study and a qualitative survey of food industry companies. An extensive literature review about inter-organizational trust lays a foundation for designing a draft typology based on previous studies, with special attention paid to the influence of culture. Fine-tuning and validation of the typology is achieved through an exploratory field study based on 18 qualitative in-depth interviews with key informants in five EU countries, involving practitioners from the fresh fruit and vegetable, grain, meat and olive supply chains. Findings – A detailed typology of trust is developed. Although it is highly specific to the food industry, it is designed to be neutral to culture and sector, thus allowing the identification of differences in culture when dealing with trust building elements in different sectors in the food supply chain. Research limitations/implications – Since the buyer's perspective is adopted in this paper, further research is needed to validate the typology on the seller side. The typology developed here must also be tested in practice, for instance within a descriptive research quantitative study, aimed at quantifying the relative importance of the different trust elements. Practical implications – The typology stimulates the consideration of cross-cultural or cross-sector differences in the salience of trust attributes and its construction process confirms that reputation management is an extremely important determinant of success or failure. It can serve as a checklist for any company that is interested in improving its relationships with suppliers or buyers. Originality/value – The paper adds to the body of knowledge about inter-organizational trust, providing researchers with a useful tool for conducting experimental research on trust creation mechanism

A Typology of Trust When We Introduce Information Technology

The adoption of e-business in the agri-food sector is not common. One of the main reasons for this is the difficulty of communicating trust. Trust helps with cross-border trade and profiting from e-business, especially in the agri-food sector, which involves products with uncertainties and risks regarding quality and safety. The objective of this chapter is to give an overview of how - and through which electronic information and communication functionalities - trust is currently generated and supported in e-business applications in the agri-food sector. The aim will be achieved through analysis of e-marketplaces regarding their functionalities for trust creation and confidence communication. The collected state-of-the-art in electronic trust generation in the food sector is integrated with the culturally sensitive typology of trust elements in business relations (especially in first transactions with a new business partner) presented in Chapter 1