Relationship between Loyalty and Trust

Research conducted in recent years has shown how confidence is an element that helps maintain commercial relationships, being this aspect of great importance in the business sector (Barroso & Martin-Armario, 2000; Bigne & Blesa, 2003; Garcia et al., 2008).

Confidence has been studied and defined in many scientific disciplines, being analyzed in each of them in a different light. However, it can be defined from different perspectives (Hernandez, 2010). From a cognitive point of view, Dwyer et al. (1987) defined it as ‘the belief that the word or promise of one part is reliable and that it will meet its obligations in a relational exchange’ and is therefore the result of past experiences with the company and its reliability. By contrast, from the behavioral perspective confidence is defined as ‘the willingness from one part to be vulnerable to the actions of the other side on the basis of the expectation that the latter will perform a particular action important to the one trusting, regardless of the ability to monitor or control the other side’¹.

Because of all this, we can conclude that con­fidence has the following effects (Segarra, 2007):

1. Reducing the perceived risk associated with opportunistic behaviour by the agent,

2. Increasing self-confidence to a greater extent, and

3. Reducing transaction costs arising from the business relationship.