Analyzing Factors Effective on the Development of Relationship Commitment

Analyzing Factors Effective on the Development of Relationship Commitment
Authors:
Yashar Dehdashti
PhD student, The University of Texas at Dallas, USA

Nooshin Lotfi
PhD student, Texas A&M University, USA Dr. Naser Karami
Assistant professor, Sharif University of Technology

Keywords:
Trust, relationship commitment, relationship marketing, fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs)

Abstract

Due to the important role of commitment and trust in the relationship marketing, the factors which can directly result in a committed relationship along with the factors which can influence the commitment through influencing trust, according to the model of commitment and trust by (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) have been introduced and their level of importance has been investigated here. The article uses fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs) in the proposed model to find the most important paths leading to relationship commitment. The FCM analyzes the responses of a group of 30 people including general practitioners in dentistry, managers of dental departments in some of the public clinics and hospitals who are the direct customers of 3 distributers of dentistry equipments in Iran to find the most important paths. Also the influence of coercive power, which was not concluded in previous researches, has been examined. The result of this inquires, then, has been provided along with its managerial implications and the impacts of prioritizing antecedents and factors of trust and commitment in relationship marketing. 1. Introduction

It’s been suggested that “successful relationship marketing requires relationship commitment and trust.” (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) The literature, also, suggests that understanding relationship marketing requires distinguishing between the discrete transaction, which has a "distinct beginning, short duration, and sharp ending by performance," and relational exchange, which "traces to previous agreements [and] ... is longer in duration,

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