Governance Mechanisms and Opportunism in Inter-firm Relational Exchanges

Purpose - The general objective of this study is to explain the governance mechanisms of relational exchanges by considering both economic and relational factors. As regards the relationship between opportunism and governance mechanisms, opportunism was hypothesized as being positively related to the use of the authority mechanism, and negatively related with use of the trust mechanism. Research design, data, and methodology - Purchasing relationships between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their component suppliers were chosen as the empirical setting. Purchasing specialists in each company, who interact regularly with suppliers and have the major responsibility for managing the exchange relationships with suppliers, were used as the respondents for this study. A mail survey methodology was employed to collect data in the final field survey. Results - As predicted, opportunistic behavior is found to be negatively related to the use of the trust mechanism and positively related to the use of the authority mechanism. Therefore, the result supports the proposed hypotheses. Conclusions - By integrating research streams, this study contributes to the marketing discipline by improving our understanding of when and why different mixtures of governance mechanisms are used.