Determinants of retailer's satisfaction in emerging markets: an integrative SEM-neural network approach

The retailer is the final point of sales for brands. The performance of the retailer is a function of satisfaction the retailer derives from the trade relationships. The research framework developed to study the retailer-distributor relationship is a fusion of classical channel literature with prominent theories from behaviour-based approaches like power dependence theory and theory of relational norms. A hybrid technique of structural equation modelling (SEM) and neural network (NN) analysis is used for this cross-sectional study with a sample size of 201 grocery retailers in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector from National Capital Region of Delhi (Delhi NCR). The empirical findings of both SEM and NN reveal that fair treatment, domain issues and communication are major determinants of retailer's satisfaction. This study addresses one major void in channel literature by focusing on determinants of a retailer's satisfaction as there are very few studies which have empirically investigated this important channel relationship. It adds to the literature of relationship selling at the retailer level which has mostly been ignored, particularly in context of an emerging economy.