A hostile tale of disclosure and betrayal: Business perceptions of offshoring services

Abstract

Underpinned by affect infusion theory, this study investigates whether the disclosure of business-to-business (B2B) services being offshored leads to a negative emotional response, known as the hostility triad, and a sense of betrayal. A 2 × 2 survey experiment was employed, manipulating disclosure (disclosure vs. non-disclosure) and temporality of disclosure (past vs. future), and analyzed using ANOVAs and structural equation modeling. The results revealed that non-disclosure of offshoring of B2B services leads to significantly higher levels of negative emotions. Temporality of disclosure is also shown to play a moderating role. Further, modeling demonstrates that the hostility triad of emotions could be considered as a cumulative rather than a discrete set of emotions. These findings provide important implications for future theorizing regarding emotions in B2B marketing as well as policy implications regarding disclosure of relationship conditions.