Is trust built reactively or proactively?

Purpose Buying firms that build trust-based relationships with strategic supply chain partners have the potential to establish collaborative capabilities that enable value co-creation and competitive advantage. To understand the catalyst for firms’ trust-building activities, we evaluate the question: Do buying firms reactively or proactively build trust? Are they primarily responding to partners’ trustworthiness signals and building trust through those interchanges? Or are they proactively signaling trustworthiness as part of a deliberate and purposive trust strategy? Design/methodology/approach We use data from a sample of 165 diverse buyer firms to examine the extent to which buyers engage in trustworthiness signaling (a) as a reactionary response initiated by supplier signals or (b) as a proactive response initiated by their trust-building strategies. Survey data are analyzed using structural equation models. Findings We found that buying firms’ trust in suppliers was a reaction to suppliers’ trustworthiness signals and was driven by buyers’ proactive trust strategies. However, buyers’ subsequent signals were primarily sent because of their trust strategies, even when those signals were not aligned with the signals received from suppliers. Only buyers’ relationship commitment signals were in part a reaction to suppliers’ corresponding signals. Originality/value Our study pits social exchange theory and commitment-trust theory against a strategic view of trust to empirically test and reveal the extent to which they explain buyers’ trust-building efforts.