Learn to be good or bad? Revisited observer effects of punishment: curvilinear relationship and network contingencies
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
ISSN: 0885-8624
Article publication date: 15 March 2019
Issue publication date: 14 June 2019
Abstract
Purpose
Although supplier-initiated punishment is widely used to manage distributors’ opportunism, its spillover effect on unpunished distributors (i.e. observers) within the same distribution network remains under-researched. Specifically, this paper aims to investigate the curvilinear effect of punishment severity on an observer’s opportunism, and how such an effect is contingent on the observer’s network position.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses regression analysis with survey data gathered from 218 distributors in China’s automobile industry.
Findings
Punishment severity has an inverted U-shaped effect on the observers’ opportunism, and such effect is weakened by both the observers’ network centrality and their degree of dependence on the supplier.
Practical implications
The findings should encourage suppliers to focus more on the spillover effects of punishment on observers. To this end, the supplier must deliberately initiate the appropriate level of punishment severity against its distributors because an inappropriate level of punishment severity (e.g. too lenient) may unexpectedly raise the unpunished observers’ level of opportunism. Moreover, the supplier should be fully aware that observers’ specific network positions may produce varying spillover effects of the punishment.
Originality/value
This study enriches the literature on channel governance by revealing the curvilinear mechanism through which punishment severity influences observers’ opportunism. By applying social learning theory to channel punishment research, this study unveils both the inhibitive learning and the imitative learning forces inherent in a single punishment event, and it delineates their joint effect on an observer’s opportunism. In addition, this study outlines the observer’s vertical and horizontal relationships within the distribution network and explores their contingent roles in determining the spillover effects of punishment.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the editor-in-chief Wesley J. Johnston and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the earlier version of this manuscript. They also acknowledge the financial support provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71602157, No. 71802174), the General Research Fund from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (Project CityU 11506518), the Soft Science Research Program in Shaanxi Province (2017KRM066), and the Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities (No. JZ2018HGBZ0093).
Citation
Xiao, Z., Dong, M.C. and Zhu, X. (2019), "Learn to be good or bad? Revisited observer effects of punishment: curvilinear relationship and network contingencies", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 754-766. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-01-2018-0046
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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