Betrayal in international buyer-seller relationships: Its drivers and performance implications

Leonidas C. Leonidou, Bilge Aykol, Thomas A. Fotiadis, Paul Christodoulides and Athina Zeriti

Journal of World Business, 2017, vol. 52, issue 1, 28-44

Abstract: Although betrayal is a common phenomenon in inter-organizational cross-border relationships, the pertinent literature has remained relatively silent as regards its examination. However, the effects of betrayal are both long-lasting and destructive, and therefore an in-depth investigation of the factors that are driving it, as well as its performance outcomes, is considered necessary. Using a sample of 262 exporters, we confirm that betrayal in their relationships with foreign buyers is significantly and positively affected by relational uncertainty, opportunism, inter-partner incompatibility, relational distance, and conflict. The harmful effect of most of these factors on betrayal becomes stronger in the case of high foreign environmental uncertainty and high foreign market dynamism. The importer’s betrayal actions are in turn responsible for reducing relational performance. In fact, this negative association between importer’s betrayal and relational performance is more evident in relationships characterized by low dependence levels and low degrees of tolerance by the exporter.

Keywords: Betrayal; Exporter-importer relationships; Relational performance; Exporting; Social exchange theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090951616301572
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:worbus:v:52:y:2017:i:1:p:28-44

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/620401/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 620401/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.jwb.2016.10.007

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of World Business is currently edited by David Collings and Jonathan Doh

More articles in Journal of World Business from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().