Sandro Castaldo

A Comprehensive Model of Customer Trust in Two Retail Stores

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a comprehensive model of customer trust in a retail service setting. Three levels of the customer‐to‐store relationship are simultaneously taken into account: customer to sales associates, customer to store branded products, and customer to the store itself.Design/methodology/approach – Using partial least square (PLS) on a sample of 393 customers of an Italian supermarket retailer, a model linking customer trust (in the store, in store branded products and in sales associates) to overall perceived value and store loyalty intentions and behaviors is tested. Subsequently an expanded model to determine the influence of managerially controlled antecedent variables (salespeoples trustworthiness, store environment, store assortment, and communications) is estimated on the various trust levels.Findings – Trust in the salesperson and trust in store branded products have positive effects on overall store trust. Store trust, in turn, increases perceived v...

Trust in Market Relationships

Contents: Preface Part I: Conceptual Assumptions of Trust 1. Relationship - and Network-based Approaches: The Emerging of Trust Need 2. The Value of Trust Part II: The Contribution of the Different Disciplinary Contexts 3. Multidisciplinary Studies on Trust 4. Trust in Marketing Relationships Part III: Trust Construct Analytical Borders 5. Trust Definition: A Content Meta-Analysis 6. Trust in Marketing Relationships: the Main Analytical Dimensions Part IV: Trust Development 7. A Trust Growth Model 8. The Evolutionary and Interactive Dynamics of Trust

Trust in market relationships: An interpretative model

The paper deals with the role of trust in market relationships. The concept of trust is discussed by referring to a large extent of literature. A computer aided content analysis was carried out on a set of thirty definitions of trust and the outputs allowed for a summary to be made of the variety of the definitions proposed by the literature. The role of trust in the process of value creation is explained and the antecedents and consequences of trust are identified. A final model is presented aiming at understanding the evolutionary dynamics of trust in market relationships.

How store attributes impact shoppers’ loyalty: do different national cultures follow the same loyalty building process?

This paper takes a first step toward verifying the robustness of a comprehensive loyalty building model across different national cultures, according to Hofstede’s distinction between individualist and collectivist countries. To this end, we test a two-stage model. After collecting data from 12 countries with different cultural traits, we test the two models in two macro groups: individualist and collectivist countries. The study’s results show that the intensity of some core loyalty model paths – particularly the relationships between store loyalty and its main drivers (perceived value and customer satisfaction) – are contingent on the country’s culture. In particular, the impact of customer satisfaction on store loyalty intention is greater in collectivist countries than in individualist countries. By contrast, the impact of perceived value on store loyalty is greater in individualist than in collectivist countries. Moreover, the cultural dimension moderates the impact of the stores’ environment and promotions on satisfaction. By contrast, some other paths show robustness to national culture.

Il ruolo della fiducia nella distribuzione del farmaco

Trust has been studied in many different industries and settings because of its importance and influence in building successful relationships. It gains even more significance when dealing with credence services or in particular contexts, such as those in which one of the counterparts puts at stake something really important. There is no better example of a risky setting than the health care context. This study aims at analyzing the role played by multilayer trust (interpersonal and store trust) in the retail pharmacy, through two models estimation involving also satisfaction and trust consequences, as well as satisfaction antecedents. Results indicate that the core of a patient-pharmacist/pharmacy relationship resides in three constructs: interpersonal trust, satisfaction and store trust. Particularly significant is the role played by interpersonal trust in determining satisfaction and, indirectly, store trust. Moreover, interesting managerial insights are given to better manage the relationship with customers. This study fulfills a gap of research regarding a relevant topic for relationship marketing that has not been analyzed in depth in the health care context. Now that the significant role played by trust in such an industry has been highlighted there is still space that need to be fulfilled, starting, for example, from what drives interpersonal trust in health care, opening exciting opportunities for future research.

Private Labels and National Brands: A Comparison Within Brand Extension

This paper focuses on private labels and manufacturers’ brands; its specific goal is to answer the question whether they are the same in terms of their brand extension effectiveness. The paper reports the results of three experimental studies which analyze the impact of category fit and brand knowledge on brand extension of private label vs. national brands. The results seem to support the view that private labels differ from national brands; contrary to what stated by the branding literature both category fit and brand knowledge, have no significant effect on their extension evaluations.