How to recover trust in the banking industry? A game theory approach to empirical analyses of bank and corporate customer relationships

Purpose – Trust is a crucial element of a viable banking industry. In the corporate market though, the characteristics of the relationships between each corporate customer and the bank is a double-sided problem. Both parties might trust the other or choose to behave opportunistically. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The authors have analyzed the effects of inter-organizational trust and opportunism on the perception of risk. The paper presents a structural equations model based on a prisoner's dilemma logic to analyze the unique effects of trust between corporate customers and their banks and its corporate customers. Findings – The results based on 252 bank – corporate bank customers relationships reveal an intriguing mixed strategy between trust from one party and opportunism from the other. Research limitations/implications – The implication is that mutual trust seems to reduce the perception of risk in the market while bank opportunism significantly escalates perceived risk. The analyses also show that when the corporate customer trusts the bank, perceived risk is significantly reduced. Practical implications – The findings emphasize the role of relationship marketing in the banking industry. Originality/value – Despite the fact that inter-organizational trust is a crucial dyadic variable, few empirical studies have previously analyzed both sides of the relationship. This investigation is a preliminary analysis of how both sides of the same relationship affects the outcome. When trust erodes from one side of the relationship, it may lead to the same process on the other side of the relationship.