Cause-Effect among Relationship Selling Behaviors, Trust and Relationship Value: A Study of International Airlines in Taiwan

This study designs a model for clarifying the different behaviors of service providers who build customer trust and various mechanisms for converting different forms of consumer trust into diverse trust values in relational exchanges. Moreover, this study devises a multifaceted model based on four constructs of relationship selling behavior, such as interaction intensity, interpersonal communication, preferential treatment and tangible treatment, and examines their different effects on three types of trust, including characteristic-based trust, process-based trust and institutional-based trust, by distinguishing between relationship selling behaviors and trust. Additionally, this study also examines the various categories of trust listed above and two categories of relationship values, namely social value and functional value, to identify the different effects of trust facets on these two relationship values. The proposed model is demonstrated using data from international airlines in Taiwan. The analytical results indicate that different relationship selling behaviors indirectly increase the social relationship value and functional relationship value in light of different types of trust, rather than just for a single type of trust. For example, theinteraction intensity primarily influences social relationship value via characteristic- based trust or process-based trust.