Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to study the effect of trust and commitment in customer value creation. Thus, firstly, the different value creating functions in business relationships are examined. Next, the conceptual model that connects trust and commitment with the value creating functions is proposed. At this point the causal connections of the specified structural model are studied. The empirical results reveal that distributor's commitment is a direct and positive antecedent of value creation in a relationship, understood from a functionalist perspective. With reference to the other relational variable, distributor's trust, it has an indirect effect in value creation through distributor's commitment.