Impacts of classic transaction cost-related factors on partner’s cooperative and opportunistic behaviour in joint ventures
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
ISSN: 0885-8624
Article publication date: 5 October 2018
Issue publication date: 15 October 2018
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate impacts of classic transaction cost-related factors (i.e. partner selection cost, specific asset investment and extorting rent cost) on joint venture (JV) partner’s cooperative and opportunistic behaviour, from the perspective of transaction cost economics.
Design/methodology/approach
Item measurements, based on which the questionnaire was developed, were derived according to a thorough search and review of related literature. In all, 226 valid responses from manufacturing enterprises in China were collected. A structural equation modelling approach was used to analyse the data and examine the fitness of the proposed model.
Findings
This study shows that partner selection cost, specific asset investment and extorting rent cost are positively related to a JV partner’s cooperative behaviour. Specific asset investment exerts the most significant influence on partner’s cooperative behaviour. The results also reveal that partner’s opportunistic behaviour is not significantly affected by specific asset investment but is negatively influenced by extorting rent cost. Both partner selection cost and extorting rent cost show positive impacts on specific asset investment.
Research limitations/implications
The investigation focused on only manufacturing enterprises in one country. Future research could be directed to investigating other countries to increase the generalizability of the findings.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that increasing the extorting rent cost to promote the probability of specific asset investment is a core element to enhance JV partner cooperation.
Originality/value
The study not only empirically investigates the relative importance of classic transaction cost-related factors on JV partner opportunism and cooperation, but also enables a deeper understanding of the interrelationship among the classic transaction cost-related factors and their influences on partner cooperation and opportunism.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71573216, 71402138), MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Program of Humanities and Social Sciences (No. 18YJC630218) and Scientific Research Program Funded by Shaanxi Provincial Education Department (No. 17JK0633). The authors wish to thank survey participants for helping them to access manager-level data of the firms. They are also grateful to the editor and anonymous reviewers for the constructive comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
Citation
Xue, J., Yuan, H. and Geng, Z. (2018), "Impacts of classic transaction cost-related factors on partner’s cooperative and opportunistic behaviour in joint ventures", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 33 No. 7, pp. 883-895. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-02-2017-0031
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited