Building Stronger Channel Relationships Through Information Sharing

Does sharing market information help channel partners to buildstronger mutual relationships? Is low initial trust really animpediment for further relationship development by means ofinformation sharing? How do connections with other competingchannel partners affect the relationship building process? Toaddress these questions, we conducted an experimental study.Our findings show that retailer information sharing helps todevelop higher quality supplier relationships. Interestingly,even if the initial level of trust in the retailer is low, therelationship quality substantially improves. In a morecompetitive situation the suppliers respond more favorably tothe retailer?s information-sharing initiative