Ugné Wistedt: Consumer Relationship Development in High-Uncertainty Contexts

Abstract

Relational Exchange Theory (RET) is a foundational marketing theory explaining how relationships develop, with trust, commitment, and uncertainty as its core concepts. Since its development in the 1980s, initially for studying relationships in Business-to-Business (B2B) markets, its extension to Business-to-Consumer (B2C) markets has been widely debated and has also shaped contemporary research. However, RET has predominantly been developed and applied in low-uncertainty contexts, characterized by familiarity and reliable information cues. This focus has resulted in RET being grounded in contexts where familiarity and reliable information cues are readily available, thereby supporting the formation of trust and commitment.

These conditions, however, do not hold in high-uncertainty contexts, where outcomes cannot be readily anticipated due to ambiguous, limited, or absent information and familiarity cues. Such heightened and persistent uncertainty can impede trust and commitment, thereby constraining the development of consumer relationships. This calls for consideration of RET's applicability beyond the contexts in which it was originally developed. Addressing this issue is essential, as it not only contributes to the debate on RET's application in B2C markets but also extends its boundary conditions to high-uncertainty contexts. This overlooked theoretical puzzle defines the central problem addressed in this thesis. Therefore, this thesis aims to study and increase understanding of consumer relationship development in high-uncertainty contexts.

This thesis uses small, unfamiliar, resource-constrained retailers adopting partial online internationalization (POI) in cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) as an empirical illustration of a high-uncertainty context for studying consumer relationship development. Using mixed methods, the thesis follows a multiphase research design. In the exploratory phase, a systematic review of the consumer CBEC literature was conducted (Paper I), showing, through bibliometric and content analyses, that consumers navigate multiple types of uncertainty and that the use of RET in this domain remains limited. Building on this, a survey was developed for two papers (Papers II and III) in the confirmatory phase to test RET in a high-uncertainty context, with each paper focusing on different types of uncertainty affecting the initial phase of consumer relationship development. As their findings deviated from RET, a qualitative study was conducted in the explicatory phase to understand the development of the relationship in depth (Paper IV). Collectively, these papers show that consumer relationship development follows a different path in high-uncertainty contexts than RET suggests.

This thesis contributes to the RET literature in three main ways. First, it develops a conceptual framework for consumer relationship development in high-uncertainty contexts. In doing so, it refines and advances the explanatory scope of RET to account for these contexts. Second, it identifies the uncertainties consumers encounter and shows their effects throughout the relationship development, demonstrating that uncertainty shifts from reduction to ongoing coping as relationships develop. Third, it explains how consumers develop relationships, organized into three phases: initial, building, and relationship, each characterized by distinct roles of uncertainty, trust, and commitment.