Importance of trust building elements in business-to-business agri-food chains

In marketing literature, trust is perceived as a pivotal aspect of business transactions. However, trust is still a concept that needs to be clarified. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to measure the importance of trust building elements in establishing a trustful relationship between trading partners in business transactions, and in the food and beverage sector. Required data was collected by 151 computer aided, qualitative expert interviews with SME business leaders in ten different countries. For the evaluation of the trust building elements, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was applied using a predefined, hierarchical structure. The analysis of the data demonstrates that the product related elements are the most important factors in explaining trust creation in business relationships, whereas relationship aspects and the market environment are of less importance. Results concerning trust creation in business relationships further indicate that there are some important differences between cultures and sectors. The estimation of the importance of trust elements in interorganizational relationships will be useful for the implementation in b2b e-business applications simply because it will help to identify the trust building elements that should be the first considerations when integrating e-commerce applications into business procedures.