INFLUENCE OF BENEVOLENCE AND CREDIBILITY ON CONDUCT OF INTEGRATIVE NEGOTIATION BEHAVIOURS

: This paper aims to determine the influence of benevolence and credibility on cooperative negotiation in the B2B markets between manufacturers and distributors using the dyadic methodology. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) emphasizes the bi-dimensionality of trust, credibility, and benevolence by surveying 253 manufacturers and 53 distributors. Analyzing the perceptions of Producers and Retailers revealed the existence of a “perceptual convergence” between them. Moreover, the results from the dyadic analysis of the representative sample of the study showed a significant and positive impact of credibility on integrative and cooperative negotiation behavior. However, it also revealed an insignificant relation between cause and effect between benevolence and integrative and cooperative negotiation behavior. After using regression, benevolence as a dimension of trust positively impacts the integrative and cooperative negotiation behavior estimates reject. This research created a retailer and manufacturer integrative and cooperative negotiation behavior model for the B2B markets, adding to the greater knowledge of Marketing and Management. The proposed model shall aid manufacturers and retailers in effective integrative business negotiation. Retailers, who are more powerful than producers, benefit more from utilizing negotiation as a tool to exercise a better influence over producers/suppliers and, thus, reach better results. Nevertheless, the findings revealed that Trust impacts positively and directly integrative negotiation. Hence, it suggests building integrative and cooperative negotiations between producers and retailers depending on the degree of trust between them. Finally, the findings can be considered an evident aid for managers to accomplish effective negotiations better. It is worth mentioning that the results of the PCA of producers' and retailers' perceptions designate the insignificant relationship between benevolence and integrative negotiation.

Introduction.Research has shown retailers and producers (RPs) cooperate together for mutual interests (Morgan & Hunt 1994;Sheu et al. 2006).Cooperation has often been examined around negotiation and trust between retailers and producers (Gurviez & Korchia 2002;Krafft et al. 2015).As a result, a renewed focus on trust has infused dynamism in the relationship causing closer ties between the RPs (Frazier & Summers 1984;Ganesan, 1994;Doney & Cannon, 1997;Rahmoun & Debabi, 2012;Helies-Hassid, 2002).The renewal dominated by psycho-sociological frameworks stemming from cognitive approaches focuses on negotiation within retail marketing (Krafft et al., 2015).However, this social practice takes extremely varied forms, from normalizing complex systems to decision-making and conflict resolutions.Accordingly, negotiation has been considered as a way of resolving conflicts as a possible alternative to using force, similar to mediation and arbitration practices (Macquin, 1998;Aastrup et al. 2007).For instance, retailers have a large customer basis, which gives them bargaining power (Fornell, 1992;Haucap et al. 2019.In addition, producers have no direct access to the retailers' customer database, which may limit producers' bargaining power, an avenue to access conflict.Also, the need to focus on how conflict is resolved through the power struggles between RPs is essential.In this line of thinking, it seems appropriate to clarify and understand the foundations on which exchange relationships and integrative negotiation are based (Geiger, 2017).In fact, one of the ambitions of this study is to examine the exchange relationships binding RPs, referring to what is called in the literature as «integrative negotiation».This study elucidates two MNCs (multinational retail corporations), the case of Carrefour and Geant.The MNCs form two of the largest hypermarket chains in the Word.Furthermore, the retailers exert a bargaining power in the commercial negotiation with their producers since they hold the largest market.Therefore, the nature of the relationship between the retailers, such as Carrefour and GEANT, may require particular methods for widening their customer base.Hence, retailers exert more pressure on producers to maintain a minimum cost by pricing out the competition.Furthermore, we provide a solution from distributive to integrative negotiation.Therefore, we study the impact of trust on regulating the relationship between retailers and producers in this paper.
Literature Review.Integrative and distributive negotiation.The notion of exchange and its effect on the complexity of negotiations has recently attracted the attention of the relevant literature on distribution channels (Frazier & Summers, 1984;Dwyer et al., 1987;Anderson & Weitz, 1989).The distribution channel, a way of delivering finished products to target consumers, consists of several actors whose practices might complement or compete with each other (Parson, 2003).Negotiations (as a channel of making decisions) occur when there are no rules regulating decisions, authority, and no determined price to exchange goods or services (Zartman 2004).Negotiation is considered in the literature as a necessary component of relational marketing (Srinivasan & Moorman 2005).It focuses on many varied forces, which explains the difficulty in operationalizing its processes and results.
In fact, within distribution channels, integrative negotiation is a strategy whose aim is to reach some objectives (Frazier & Summers 1984;Anderson & Narus, 1990;Morgan & Hunt 1994) and notably to satisfy the negotiator's objectives, taking into consideration as well satisfying the opposite partner (Bazerman & Lewicki, 1985).It rests on a climate of trust, reciprocity, and mutual credibility (Dupont, 1990).Most relevant research and managerial practices assume that an integrative negotiation strategy generates strong relationships between negotiators, which might lead to sharing interests and increasing sales and profits (Colgate & Danaher, 2000;Rahmoun & Debabi, 2012;Ashnai et al., 2015).Some recent practices adopted by retailers and producers, like category management, show that this way of negotiating is currently gaining ground (Debabi, 2009).For example, in research conducted in the United Kingdom's food sector, Haase and Franco (2011) have shown how competitive environments may be manipulated to satisfy retailers with limited options.The implication for practice suggests maintaining relationships that meet the parties' expectations when negotiating using category management.The win/win strategy, which is known as a cooperative or an integrative strategy, is adopted by those who consider negotiation as an opportunity to resolve a conflict with a satisfying outcome for all those involved in the negotiation process so that there is an agreement between all parties with the ultimate intention of improving long-term relationships.Distributive negotiation aims at separating interlocutors and rests on a one-sided outcome.The rule to be followed thus is «win at all costs».It is adopted by those who consider negotiation as an opportunity to resolve a conflict to maximize their interests at the expense of the other parties (Diouri, 1999;Andaleeb, 1995).Supporting theories for change in strategies adopted in the industry also include observing patterns and trends within the sector, as categorized in the work of Reardon and Timmer (2012).
The Concept of Trust during Exchange.Trust represents a concept quite largely considered by the literature (Katz, 2015) nowadays.Indeed, some marketing studies, mostly referring to the exchange paradigm, have established the role of trust as a way of ensuring cooperative relationships between actors involved in the distribution channel (Anderson and Weitz, 1989;Anderson and Narus, 1990;Gundlach & Murphy, 1993;Garbarino & Johnson, 1999;Razzaque, 2003).Currently, trust has become a key variable for key management research (Mayer et al., 1995) within the context of business exchanges or negotiation in general.Table 1 shows the trust dimensions, including the discipline, authors, and dimensions of trust.Moreover, the variable «trust» was spread during the 1980s by marketing managers (Chadwick & Burton, 2011).Trust within industrial marketing is considered a key variable behind the success and durability of partner exchanges.It refers to two research trends.The first is decision-making in a purchasing context (Dwyer et al. 1987), and the second is about the relationships between suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, and suppliers in a distribution context.Ganesan 1994; Sahay 2003) questions the nature of trust, its dimensions, its consequences, and its conception.The author uses the definition of trust between buyers and sellers proposed by Moorman et al. (1992) and reviews the relevant research testing a model that distinguishes between two fundamental dimensions of trust, i.e., credibility and benevolence.
Similarly, Doney and Cannon (1997) retained these same two dimensions.Several researchers seem to agree on the dimensionality of trust.The first group of researchers considers trust as a one-dimensional concept.Anderson and Weitz (1989) measure trust in terms of motivation, whereas Mayer et al. (1995) consider it as strongly representing cognitive and behavioral constructs.A second group of researchers considers trust as a bi-dimensional concept (Moorman et al., 1992;Morgan & Hant, 1994;Ganesan & Hess, 1997).A third group of researchers considers trust as a multidimensional concept.Gurviez & Korchia (2002) retained three dimensions (credibility, integrity, and benevolence), while Moorman et al. (1992) integrity, sincerity, and expertise.
Nevertheless, despite the vast number of studies devoted to trust, notably in management sciences, it remains difficult to define (Bonoma, 1976;).Morgan and Hunt (1994) justify trust and engagement as intermediary variables in their model on cooperative behavior.Additionally, Balliet and Van Lange ( 2013) recorded the size of conflict as proportional to trust, thus further revealing closer proximity between trust and cooperation.Furthermore, Kong et al. (2017) discuss the connection between predicting behavior using trust as a variable.Besides, evaluative reviews modeling the strengths and weaknesses of trust have critically synthesized trust covering twenty years (Akrout & Akrout, 2011).A summary is given in Table 1.Sources: developed by the authors.
Methodology and research methods.Pressure from the competition and new economic challenges limit producers and retailers from developing their relationships and seeking a common ground for action.The relational approach heavily focuses on the key role that trust plays in an integrative negotiation between producers and retailers.In the study model, the two dimensions of Ganesan (1994) were retained, assuming that these dimensions might positively affect the conduct of integrative negotiation between producers and retailers.Trust favors exchanging information, reactivity, resolution of problems, and delegating responsibilities (Gundlach & Murphy, 1993).It is also considered an essential element of cooperation between distribution channel members (Sahay, 2003;Anderson and Narus, 1990;Anderson and Weitz, 1989).The results show that trust might increase the probability of reaching an agreement, making the negotiation process more pleasant (Lewicki, 1985).It is expected to affect the choice of the to-be-used negotiation strategy (Zarkada-Fraser and Fraser 2001).Indeed, trust is proposed as a major coordination tool for the firm to build stronger and longer relationships with its partners.It rests on concessions to reach an eventual mutual agreement (Sahay, 2003).The main dimensions of trust are not easily identifiable when conceptualized in a causal model (Ehkalahti, 2014).To formulate our hypotheses, we referred to the work of Ganesan (1994), who conceptualizes trust as the two fundamental dimensions of credibility and benevolence.Morgan and Hunt (1994) and Andaleeb (1995) agree with Ganesan (1994).Table 2 demonstrates our position to justify the uses of Ganesan's (1994) model due to the combination of perspectives it involved (Akrout & Akrout, 2011).Therefore, when the other perspective studies, as shown in Table 2, evaluate the uses of trust as causes and consequences, we synthesize the perspectives through the work of Ganesan (1994).Sources: developed by the authors.
H1: Credibility between producer and retailer impact positively the conduct of integrative negotiation.H2: Benevolence between producer and retailer impact positively the conduct of integrative negotiation.
One of the ambitions of this study is to examine the exchange relationships binding retailers and producers through «integrative negotiation».Consequently, retailers must preserve positive customer relationships to expand their market share and profit margins.Hence, retailers and producers present an ideal opportunity for collecting data samples from them.
Theoretical hypotheses were defined according to a literature review; we then conducted a quantitative survey with an affirmative approach.Data collection was done using a questionnaire.The questionnaire includes 17 items that aim to measure the dimensions mentioned above.To this end, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) allowed the elimination of 3 items representing the dimension «conduct of integrative negotiation» and to retain the two dimensions of trust.We ensured the respondents only responded to the items in the questionnaire to remove biases.
Sampling.The authors conducted our survey among two groups of respondents, producers, and retailers.The list of responders in the samples consisted of 856 producers, of which 30% responded.The 253 producers with more than 10 workers sustained relationships with retailers of more than 5 active years.As the list of producers was available, it supported retaining a stratified sampling procedure.The survey also asked the producers who their retailers were, which contributed to sampling the retailers for our second group in the food and retailing market.To test retailers' insight against our hypothesis, we sent our samples to 53 food retailing managers.The names were supplied by the producers that conducted transactions with them.The availability of a list of these producers was our basis for choosing this method.All technical terms were explained to the respondents when necessary.
Measures.To measure trust, the study cited the literature on relationships between companies.Under the exchange paradigm, trust is considered to be an important component of relationship quality and a determinant of the durability between sellers and buyers (Ganesan, 1994;Ganesan & Hess, 1997).It also contributes to building relationships between partners within a distribution network (Anderson & Weitz, 1989;Anderson & Narus, 1990;Morgan & Hunt, 1994, Gundlach & Murphy, 1993).Trust was measured using a two dimensions scale developed by Ganesan (1994).Indeed, basing ourselves on his work, we consider trust to consist of the two dimensions of credibility and benevolence.
The study used exploratory factor analysis, the PCA, in a preliminary analysis to purify the chosen scale.In this exploratory phase, 53 were interviewed on a five-point Likert scale, which has been proven to allow further comparison (Dawes, 2008).A PCA undertaken on this scale sorted out several items with high loadings over many factors, which indicates that these items are not dependent on one another.
The results obtained from the analysis show that the 8 items measuring trust are linked to two factors F1 and F2.The retained items indicate good reliability of the two dimensions of the trust scale (Cronbach Alpha = 0,777).The first main factor, which is neatly observed, is credibility.It explains 40.196% of the variance with a value of 3.216.The second factor is benevolence, which interestingly explains 33,240% of the variance with a value of 2,659.F1 and F2 explain together 73,436% of the variance.These results confirm that credibility and benevolence are two distinct dimensions, each representing a specific aspect of trust.This strong correlation has already been observed by authors who conceptualized trust by the two dimensions of credibility and benevolence (Ganesan 1994).The following table presents the items retained to measure the two dimensions of trust.In conclusion, it was conducted a factor analysis with the PCA method and obtained two factors.The first factor includes Cred2, Cred3, Cred1, and Cred4, representing the first dimension of trust (credibility).The items representing the second dimension of trust are as follows: Benev1, Benev2, Benev3, and Benev4.After quantifying these two dimensions of trust, it will be possible to determine their effect on the conduct of integrative negotiation.

Credibility
Measurement Scale of the dependent variable: conduct of integrative negotiation.Negotiation between producers and retailers is becoming a strategic concept.It is defined as a way of resolving a conflict between two or more parties because of concluding an acceptable mutual agreement (Debabi, 2009).Several researchers tried introducing behavioral variables in their models of producers' and retailers' relationships, like the sources of power model of Raven ( 2008), modified by Hunt and Nevin (1974).Although studies using scales to determine the variables representing negotiation are scarce, one cannot deny the contribution of some authors who intensified the interest in measuring negotiation during these two decades.The literature on negotiation placed an important interest in the notion of tension, which puts the negotiator into a dilemma between two strategies: cooperation and competition (Mnookin et al., 1996).

Neg1
The two parties negotiate with the flexibility to accommodate their respective interests.

Neg2
The two parties look for common grounds with a win-win perspective Neg3 Negotiation with cooperation and integration contributes to resolving conflicts between two or more parties.

Neg4
Nowadays, we agree on the shift from distributive negotiation to integrative negotiation.

Neg5
Your negotiations distinguish themselves by a constructive exchange of information.

Neg6
Integrative negotiation deactivates self-interest promoting win-win Sources: developed by the authors.Graham (1986) uses a five-point scale to measure the cooperative strategy to determine negotiators' perceptions.A PCA analyzes the same five-item scale.The results highlighted two dimensions with the following values: 3.395 and 1.540.The study proceeded to a preliminary analysis to eliminate the items with low factor loadings (0.5).Subsequently, item Neg 8 is eliminated.Neg 7 and Neg 9 presented very low correlation coefficients, below the 0.3 thresholds.Therefore, these items were eliminated from the integrative negotiation measurement scale.To improve the quality of items and explain the variance, the following three items (Neg 7, Neg 8, and Neg 9) have been eliminated, and a new PCA has been conducted.This second stage resulted in a single factor, which recovered more than 50% of the variance explained.
The results of the second stage yielded a single factor, which recovered more than 50% of the total explained variance above 1, i.e., 3.174.These results show that the integrative negotiation matri x is indeed factorial (KMO= 0.762, Bartlett's sphericity test obtained an adjusted Chi-square of 99.410 at P=0.000), and the factor loadings of each retained item are above 0.6, indicating a good statistical representation.Likewise, reliability analysis shows that the scale has good internal consistency.Cronbach's alpha is 0.810.These results show that the items of the integrative negotiation scale represent this very well constructed and lead us to conclude the uni-dimensionality of the scale.The following table presents the items retained to measure the integrative negotiation.Sources: developed by the authors.
Results.Measurement model.The first stage ensures our model's fit quality (Guiot 2002).To this end, using the structural equations method is basic.The results presented in Table 6 indicate that the fit coefficients of the model meet the standards.Before testing our hypotheses, model fit quality is estimated by a series of indices obtained by the Amos 4.0 software.Examination of three indexes (absolute, incremental, and parsimonious) allows the assessment of model fit quality.The lowest possible (compared to the saturated model) Hypothesis testing.Testing Hypotheses according to producers' perspective.This stage essentially consists of checking the relationships' significance between the latent variables and thus testing our research hypotheses.To this effect, by applying the t-test, we compare the theoretical value and the computed value.This latter should be above the theoretical value (t = 1.96) to accept or reject our hypotheses.Table 7 summarizes the obtained results: Sources: developed by the authors.
The results (Table 7) mentioned the relationship causality effect is satisfying.Indeed, the significance of the relationship between credibility and the conduct of integrative negotiation was noted.However, the relationship between benevolence and conduct of integrative negotiation is insignificant «rejected» (computed t = -1.425and therefore <1.96).
Testing hypotheses according to retailers' perspectives.The sample of the retailers consists of 53 individuals.We then opted for regression analysis, which is theoretically appropriate for the sample size.The results of the regression model are reported in Table 8.Sources: developed by the authors.
According to these results, we can conclude that model fit quality is satisfactory and that the model might represent an integrative negotiation concept.63 % of the variance of integrative negotiation is explained by the independent variables (credibility and benevolence).According to the regression results, shown in Table 9, we note that the hypothesis linking credibility and conduct of integrative negotiation according to retailers' perspective is retained.Yet, the hypothesis of the positive influence of benevolence over integrative negotiation as perceived by retailers is rejected.Then, we can conclude that there is a «perceptual convergence» between the two groups regarding the impact of the two dimensions of trust, «credibility and benevolence», over integrative negotiation.Sources: developed by the authors.
These data findings demonstrate trust impacts positively and directly integrative negotiation.The results suggest to build integrative and cooperative negotiations between producers and retailers depends on the degree of trust between them.Furthermore, it shows producers and retailers continue their relationship depending on credibility as one will attempt to reduce the perceived risk in the relationship by selecting a supplier that is performing credibly (Ganesan, 1994).It also shapes the approach toward negotiating and contracting (Friman et al., 2002).
The topic of negotiation and trust is generating a growing interest in marketing and organizational studies.Previous research found that trust positively relates to negotiation between producers and retailers.However, the validity of this assumption is questionable because trust has been operationalized in many different ways.For example, prior research did not distinguish between the impact of the dimensions of trust (credibility and benevolence) on the conduct of integrative negotiation.
The main objective of this study was to determine the impact of trust (considered a bi-dimensional construct in terms of benevolence and credibility) on the conduct of integrative negotiation.The results of the dyadic-based empirical study showed that the two sides of the relationship (producers and retailers) had the same perception of the impact of credibility and benevolence over the conduct of integrative negotiation.The results indicate the relevance of studying trust in the retailing sector.
Managerial implication.The contribution of this study is the proposed model, which shall help producers and retailers better succeed in an integrative business negotiation.Indeed, retailers, who are more powerful than producers, perceive negotiation as a tool, allowing them to exert a form of influence over suppliers to gain better results.The elaborated model and the results of the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of producers' and retailers' perceptions indicated that the «credibility» dimension had a positive impact on the conduct of integrative negotiation and, consequently, they allowed concluding of a «perceptual convergence» between retailers and producers.Managers can thus better succeed in their negotiations once they consider this dimension.At this level, new research perspectives are possible.In addition, PRs can build, develop or even repair trust to have the benefits mentioned above incurred from it in a relationship (Lewicki 2006).
However, the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) results of producers' and retailers' perceptions indicate that the relationship between benevolence and the conduct of integrative negotiation is not significant.Nonetheless, there is a conceptual lack of clarity in the definitions of trust (Gefen et al., 2003b;McKnight et al., 2002); it is then worth mentioning that the results partially contribute to the credibility dimension of trust defined by others in Table 1.
Conclusions.This research has some limitations.First, this research focuses on the producers' and retailers' perceptions of trust relationships and integrative negotiation building.Producers and retailers may have different perceptions of other psychometric variables, such as dependence and commitment, leading to different outcome expectations.Thus, future research should investigate the impact of such differences between the producer and retailer perceptions on the effects observed in this research.Second, the main limitation of this research relates to the difference between sample sizes.For the producers, it was relatively easy to interview an important number of managers in the purchase and negotiation department (253 individuals), given that retailers deal with hundreds of suppliers.However, only 53 purchasing managers could be approached for retailers because of the limited number of shopping centers and large hypermarkets.Thirdly, this study uses producers and retailers of food as samples.Future research can examine the proposed model in other industries because producer and retailer relationship maintenance factors and methods may vary in industries such as services, telecommunications, or high-tech industries.
Conflicts of Interest: Authors declare no conflict of interest.
Cred 1: I trust him/her Cred 2: He made a lot of sacrifices in the past Cred 3: He avoids unserious offers Cred 4: He is perfectly honest with us Benevolence Benev 1: He is always benevolent with us Benev 2: He takes care of our interests Benev 3: We feel he is on our side Benev 4: He makes efforts in our favor Sources: developed by the authors.

Ecvi 1 .
333 (2.190  saturated models) The lowest possible (compared to the saturated model) Sources: developed by the authors.− Measurement of absolute fit: RMSEA is well below 0.08; it approximates 0.011 and shows thus that the model fits the data correctly.AGFi approximates 1 (0.928 in our case), indicating good fit quality.− Incremental indices: The different incremental indices indicate acceptable model fit.Incremental indices coefficients (NFI, CFI, TLI, IFI) are neatly below the threshold of 0.9.− Parsimonious indices: The different parsimonious indices point to an acceptable model fit.The comparative indices are very satisfactory.The adjusted Chi-square with degrees of freedom of 1.031 satisfies the condition of a good fit with values between 1 and 2.13.In conclusion, the different indices show that the model represents the data very well.

Table 9 . Impact of benevolence and credibility over the conduct of integrative negotiation (retailer's perception)
* indicates that the parameters are significant under 1%.n.s: indicates that the parameters are not significant.