Zhizhong Jiang

The importance of trust vis‐à‐vis reliance in business relationships: some international findings

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the levels of trust and reliance in different international business markets. The paper aims to obtain empirical evidence regarding the importance of relational aspects (trust) vis‐a‐vis organisational ones (reliance) for building long‐term business relationships.Design/methodology/approach – This is an exploratory study to examine trust and reliance in the manufacturing and construction industries of four countries: UK, India, Pakistan, and Poland. Statistical analysis is based on a data sample of 501 responses collected through a survey of buying and selling relationships.Findings – Although varying across countries, stable relationships with high levels of both trust and reliance exist widely in business markets. Exclusively trust‐based business relationships, i.e. those which are mainly driven by individual‐level aspects, are very rare. However, both trust and reliance are significant for building relationships with long‐term perspectives.Practical...

Mobilizing ideas in knowledge networks - A social network analysis of the human resource management community 1990-2005

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show the role of social networks in mobilizing how actors both impact and are impacted on by their colleagues. It seeks to compare the human resource management (HRM) academic community with two other comparable communities, and to identify those groups that are seen to work closely together.Design/methodology/approach – It is shown how social network analysis (SNA) can be utilized to analyse data in social networks, shedding light on the cliques and networks of people that work together over a period of time. This is based on an analysis of co‐authored papers in the field of HRM between 1990 and 2005.Findings – It is shown how the HRM community has developed over time utilizing various SNA metrics and this community of scholars is shown to be less “dense” than comparable academic networks, being made up of several weakly‐linked subcomponents. The paper also identifies the “ego‐nets” of individuals that are indicative of different publishing strategies.Originality...

Exploring trust vis-à-vis reliance in business relationships: A qualitative analysis in the UK construction industry

Purpose – To overcome the limitations of applying trust in interorganizational relationships, this paper aims to investigate the significant role of interorganizational reliance in business relationships and develop an original scale to measure this new construct. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 20 in‐depth interviews with buying firms were conducted in the UK construction industry. The contents of the interviews were analyzed with NVivo to examine the rational standards underlying the buyer‐supplier exchange relationship. Findings – Trust is a relevant but not in itself a sufficient condition for the development and sustaining of buyer‐supplier relationships. The objective rationality requires that business relationships are centred on organizational needs and benefits which necessitate the rational standard of interorganizational reliance. Reliance remains to be central in business relationships despite low or lack of trust. Research limitations/implications – Focusing on the construction industry, this paper evaluates the current status of trust and develops an understanding of interorganizational reliance in business relationships. Practical implications – The generic use of the term of trust has obscured the meaning and significance of reliance in business relationships. Marketing researchers should put necessary attention and efforts to explore the distinct features and effects of reliance in exchange relationships between organizations. Originality/value – The paper empirically examines the deficiencies in trust, and demonstrates the significance of reliance in buyer‐supplier relationships. An original measure for the new construct of reliance is also developed through interviews with key informants.

Varying routes to the top: identifying different strategies in the MBA marketplace

AbstractThe market for MBA degrees is changing rapidly. As this market tends to maturity, an increase in the number of universities offering these degrees is evident, and also in the different formats in which these degrees are offered. In this increasingly crowded marketplace, there exist two main sources of information that buyers (students as well as prospective employers of MBA students) can use to assess the products on offer—whether or not a Business school/MBA programme is accredited, and also the position of the school in available rankings, a number of which are regularly published. Playing ‘the rankings game’ is one that occupies the time and effort of many MBA directors globally, as they all try to edge their way upwards in order to attract more and better students. The problem with an ordinal ranking, though, is that it suggests too readily that it is based upon a unidimensional measure. We use the data behind one of these rankings, that of the Financial Times top 100, full-time MBA programmes in 2008, in order to explore to what extent schools are using different routes to try to improve their rankings. Using a variety of multivariate statistical tools, we base our analysis on the three underlying factors of alumni career progress, diversity, and idea generation. What emerges is a clearer picture of the extent to which programmes that are ranked very closely do, in fact, base their success on very different routes to the top.

Antecedents of behavioural commitment in inter-organizational relationships: a field study of the UK construction industry

Commitment is vital in inter-organizational relationships. It is important to understand what drives commitment which then affects the relationship between organizations. Commitment is a multidimensional construct and its dimensions can be broadly categorized into attitudinal and behavioural perspectives. In conventional practice, commitment researchers have tended to focus on the attitudinal perspective, while the behavioural perspective is largely ignored. In an attempt to buck that conventional trend commitment research is proposed along the unconventional but widely accepted as important behavioural perspective, building up a more complete understanding of the importance of behavioural commitment, as well as developing and validating a theoretical model that depicts precisely the relationship between behavioural commitment and its key driving factors. Accordingly a large-scale questionnaire survey has been conducted in the UK construction industry and 636 responses were collected. Structural equation modelling was then used to test the theoretical model. Results validate trust, reliance and dependence as the major antecedents of behavioural commitment. A new direction in commitment research adds new findings to the current body of commitment literature.

Exploring trust vis‐à‐vis reliance in business relationships

Purpose – To overcome the limitations of applying trust in interorganizational relationships, this paper aims to investigate the significant role of interorganizational reliance in business relationships and develop an original scale to measure this new construct. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 20 in‐depth interviews with buying firms were conducted in the UK construction industry. The contents of the interviews were analyzed with NVivo to examine the rational standards underlying the buyer‐supplier exchange relationship. Findings – Trust is a relevant but not in itself a sufficient condition for the development and sustaining of buyer‐supplier relationships. The objective rationality requires that business relationships are centred on organizational needs and benefits which necessitate the rational standard of interorganizational reliance. Reliance remains to be central in business relationships despite low or lack of trust. Research limitations/implications – Focusing on the construction industry, this paper evaluates the current status of trust and develops an understanding of interorganizational reliance in business relationships. Practical implications – The generic use of the term of trust has obscured the meaning and significance of reliance in business relationships. Marketing researchers should put necessary attention and efforts to explore the distinct features and effects of reliance in exchange relationships between organizations. Originality/value – The paper empirically examines the deficiencies in trust, and demonstrates the significance of reliance in buyer‐supplier relationships. An original measure for the new construct of reliance is also developed through interviews with key informants.