Antecedents of interpersonal trust in customer-pharmacist relationships

The paper aims to examine the antecedents of customer trust in salespersons. In particular, it looks at the relationship between customers and pharmacists. The paper empirically tests expertise, customer orientation, selling orientation, and likeability as the main drivers of trust in the pharmacist. To test our conceptual model, we run a multiple linear regression by employing the Ols methodology on a dataset from a sample of 209 pharmacy clients located in a big city of the South of Italy. Results indicate that, in order of importance, likeability, customer orientation, and expertise are positively related to trust in the pharmacist, while selling orientation is negatively related. This study deepens the work of Castaldo and colleagues (2012) regarding the concept of trust in the context of pharmacies through a further examination of trust in the pharmacist, which is one of the components of their model.