Relationship Satisfaction in B2B E-Commerce Trading Partnerships: The Countervailing Effects of Risk and Trust

This study investigates the antecedents of relationship satisfaction between B2B e-commerce trading partners. Relationship satisfaction is critical for sustaining long-term interorganizational relationships that allow for the development of interorganizational resources necessary to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Using the relational view of the firm (Dyer and Singh, 1998) as a theoretical foundation, a research model is developed to investigate the direct and counterbalancing effects of organizational trust in the trading partner and trading partner B2B e-commerce risk on organizational relationship satisfaction. In addition, the indirect effects of justice and commitment are also considered. Using a field survey, data are collected from 205 managers involved in B2B e-commerce trading partnerships and evaluated using structural equation modeling. The results support all hypotheses and provide good model fit, strong explanatory power, and strong support for the theory. The findings indicate that justice perceptions and commitment are instrumental to the formation of trust within the context of a B2B e-commerce trading relationship. In turn, trust enhances relationship satisfaction. However, risk diminishes relationship satisfaction, thereby serving as a counterpoint to the positive effects of trust. This study makes contributions to interorganizational and accounting information systems research. First, this study addresses concerns on the relationship between risk and trust (Miller et al., 2008) by developing and testing the distinct and countervailing effects of risk and trust on B2B e-commerce partnerships. Second, this study contributes to research investigating interorganizational perceptions of procedural and distributive justice and the influence of justice perceptions on trading relationships (Luo, 2005; Beugre and Acar, 2008). Finally, this study addresses the call to acknowledge and consider the critical role of information technology in interorganizational relationships (Cuganesan and Lee, 2006; Granland, 2011).