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This study aims to examine the effect of supplier supply network (SSN) resources on buyer–supplier collaborative product innovation. The existing relevant studies from the network perspective are focused more horizontally on the mobilization of the firm’s entire supplier network resources and less vertically on the utilization of the individual supplier's supply network resources. Therefore, this paper takes a contingency perspective, regards the buyer as the receiver of a supplier’s supply network resources and, based on the theoretical motivation–opportunity–ability framework, explores the important motivation and ability factors that may weaken or enhance the product innovation value of the network resources.

This paper develops a new research model that assesses how the innovation utilization effectiveness of SSN resources is contingent on a buyer’s perception of the SSN effects and relative absorptive capacity on the SSN. A large sample questionnaire is designed and collected from 300 Chinese high-tech manufacturing firms and their suppliers. An empirical test is carried out in which multiple regression analysis is applied to 246 valid sample data.

The results show that SSN resources can significantly enhance buyer–supplier collaborative product innovation; however, the innovation utilization effectiveness is limited by the buyer’s relative absorptive capacity for the SSN and perception of the SSN effects. Specifically, if a buyer perceives that a greater innovation effect of a supplier’s supply network is correlated with an improved relative position in the SSN or with higher network structural equivalence and network cognitive congruence between the buyer and the supplier on the SSN, then the buyer will be more motivated and capable of transforming the SSN resources into actual product innovation value.

The research results provide useful guidance for firms to effectively mobilize their SSN resources to tap into the supplier innovation value for a sustainable competitive advantage.

This paper extends the research on supplier innovation value to the SSN field. Through linking dyadic and network levels of analysis, this paper reveals the value and uniqueness of product innovation utilization of a specific supplier’s supply network resources in the buyer–supplier relationship and provides a new research perspective for future studies on related issues.

The study aims to investigate cultural aspects in supply chains, analysing the effect that local customs may have in the quality of buyer–supplier relationships. Building on the premisses of social exchange theory (SET), it concentrates on the impacts that suppliers’ use of local practices and informal networks may have in buyers’ attitudes and perceptions. The issues addressed and the empirical evidence provided represent initial, yet important steps in the fulfilment of the ‘cultural void’ within supply chain social sustainability (SCCS) literature.

Through a role-playing experiment applied to a total sample of 468 participants, the effects of Chinese guanxi, Russian blat, South Korean yongo and Brazilian jeitinho on buyers’ satisfaction, buyers’ commitment, trust and solution severity are measured by their use to access informal networks as solutions to both common (i.e. documentation irregularities) and extraordinary (i.e. modern slavery) supply chain problems.

Results show that, while the activation of informal networks may impact buyers’ perceptions, the use of some local practices by suppliers (i.e. Chinese guanxi and Brazilian jeitinho) cause greater variations in buyers’ attitudes and perceptions than others (i.e. South Korean yongo and Russian blat), with ethical offences (i.e. modern slavery) and higher levels of buyers’ dependency acting as catalysts of these processes.

The investigation of cultural practices typical of economically peripheral countries contributes to the understanding of new facets of buyer–supplier relationships, with the investigation of non-Northwestern practices being particularly important in this regard.

This paper aims to seek to explain the influence of power asymmetry and the moderating role of an organization’s absorptive and desorptive capacity on enhancing supply chain competence from its orientation to open innovation with its supply network.

To perform this study, the authors use data collected from 262 European firms. They apply regression analysis to test the moderating role of an organization’s absorptive and desorptive capacity on enhancing its supply chain competence from its orientation to open innovation.

The results confirm both the influence of power asymmetry and absorptive capacity on obtaining benefits that derive from an organization’s orientation to open innovation. The results do not, however, support the moderating effect of an organization’s desorptive capacity. Subsequent analyses performed in the study show that organizations that achieve complementarity among their own absorptive capacity and the capacities of its supply network manage to obtain greater benefits from its orientation to open innovation.

This paper responds to the need to study innovation in the context of a supply network and respond to calls in the literature on open innovation and supply chain management for the need to study the moderating role of absorptive and desorptive capacity.

The paper aims to present how relationship value is created and how it influences the existing buyer‐supplier relationship and the buyer's performance. It seeks to introduce the construct of business relationship function to analyze why the business relationship is valuable and to investigate the links between business relationship function, relationship quality and buyer's performance. Moreover, it aims to investigate whether the availability of alternative suppliers changes the influence of business relationship function on relationship quality.

A questionnaire survey was conducted in 239 manufacturing firms in north‐west China, and the hyphotheses were tested using a structural equation model with LISREL software.

The results indicate that business relationship function has a direct as well as an indirect effect on buyer's performance through the mediating effect of relationship quality. The study also finds that business relationship function has a stronger influence on relationship quality than it does on buyer's performance. Moreover, the availability of alternative suppliers will weaken the influence of business relationship function on relationship quality.

This study concentrates on only the direct functions of business relationships and the indirect functions are neglected. Future studies should investigate the direct function as well as the indirect function, and the dynamic nature of business relationships should be considered.

The study suggests that managers should develop and maintain long‐term relationships through the fulfillment of business relationship functions. The role of function fulfillment is even more important when there is competition among alternative suppliers.

The study provides a sound agenda for future research on supply chain management and industrial marketing, and has important implications for practising managers, especially in the Chinese context and other similar developing countries.

Relationships are socially constructed by companies in interaction. This study explains the dynamic character of business-to-business relationships with the aid of rules theory, a theory borrowed from the communications field. Two forms of rules are identified: constitutive rules guide the interpretation of the other's acts, and regulative rules guide the appropriate response to the interpreted act. Rules theory asserts that companies act as if applying these rules. Relationships provide not only the context in which the parties’ acts are performed but are also the result of such acts. Thus, relationships are potentially reshaped each time one party performs an act and the other party gives meaning to that act and reacts.

The present study aims to examine the impact of relational communication, operationalized in terms of information sharing, quality and frequency of information, on buyer's trust and relationship satisfaction in a buyer–vendor relationship. The study also tests the mediating role of trust and the moderating role of relationship commitment in relational communication and satisfaction relationship.

The data for the study were collected through a questionnaire survey from 321 managers of the different firms who were directly or indirectly involved in making procurement or purchasing decision in the firm and were familiar with the firm's supplier relationships.

Relational communication was found to be positively related to relational satisfaction and trust partially mediated this relationship. Further, relationship commitment moderated relational communication-satisfaction relationship, such that the positive affect of relational communication on relational satisfaction was accentuated when buyer experienced higher relationship commitment towards the supplier.

Using single source, self-reported questionnaire data and cross-sectional research design are the limitations of this study. Studies in future should consider a dyadic perspective. The study outlines the need to explore investments and strategies in enhancing relational communication in buyer–vendor relationships.

Anchored in theoretical foundations of social exchange theory, the study integrates and tests behavioral aspects of buyer–vendor relationship. Testing an integrated model with direct and indirect effects of relational communication on relationship satisfaction in buyer–vendor is a significant contribution of the research. The study also contributes by examining relational exchanges in buyer-vendor relationships in India, an underrepresented context in buyer–supplier relationship (BSR) literature.

This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the causal mechanisms that explain the relationship between the long-term buyer–supplier relationship and buyer performance. Building on the growing body of research on social capital in supply chain management (SCM), the authors examine how a buyer achieves superior performance in forming the enduring partnership with a supplier through two different forms of supplier embeddedness: buyer–supplier dyadic embeddedness and supplier external embeddedness.

The bootstrapping method is utilized in data analysis to examine the mediating effects of the two different forms of supplier embeddedness simultaneously on the linkage between the duration of buyer–supplier relationships and buyer performance outcomes.

The authors find that the two forms of supplier embeddedness serve as distinct conduits for the buyer to translate the long-term buyer–supplier relationship into performance effectiveness. Notably, dyadic embeddedness only mediates the linkage between the duration of buyer–supplier relationships and buyer economic performance, while supplier external embeddedness solely mediates the linkage between the duration of buyer–supplier relationships and buyer innovation performance.

This study empirically demonstrates that different forms of supplier embeddedness may benefit a buyer differentially when directed at distinct performance goals. If a buyer can leverage both buyer–supplier dyadic embeddedness and supplier external embeddedness, the buyer will overcome value creation limitations of social capital from a single source, obtaining more comprehensive performance benefits sought by developing long-term buyer–supplier relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the development of social capital can promote buyer’s bi-directional (inflow and outflow) information sharing. The authors examined buyers’ perceptional differences in information sharing: when they receive information from suppliers and when they provide information to suppliers, and how such inequivalent perception in information sharing can be resolved by the level of social capital and its’ sub-dimensions.

Theoretical model and the hypotheses were developed through literature review. Data were collected from Korean manufacturers in supply chains and structural equation modelling was used for analysis.

The results show that each dimension of social capital has a different effect on bi-directional information sharing. For the information inflow, all of the facets of social capital were significant; for the information outflow, however, only relational capital was significant. That is, with cognitive and structural capital, buyers perceive that they can receive appropriate information from suppliers yet be reluctant to provide information to suppliers.

Given that relational capital is essential for the balanced information sharing in buyer-supplier relationship, firms should pay attention to having social interactions with partners to promote trust in the relationship for efficacy in information sharing.

This is one of the first studies to explore the role of social capital in facilitating equivalent information sharing. This study develops a framework that social capital can provide valuable guidance in achieving equivalency of bi-directional information sharing.

This paper aims to investigate how relative contractual and relational governances impact seller’s value appropriation via buyer’s trust, perceived justice and opportunism in the context of industrial buyer–seller relationships.

Survey data from 232 matched buyer-seller dyads of Chinese business-to-business (B2B) firms was used to test the conceptual model and research hypotheses. The confirmatory factor model and structural equation model were tested by using Lisrel 8.80.

The findings show that relative contractual governance and relative relational governance have opposite consequences on B2B relationship and value outcomes. Relative contractual governance generates higher level of buyer’s opportunist behavior because it reduces buyer’s trust and perceived justice, therefore harms seller’s value appropriation. By contrast, relative relational governance enhances buyer’s trust and perceived justice, therefore curbs buyer’s opportunism and improves seller’s value appropriation.

This study makes significant contributions to theory development of value appropriation and inter-firm governance mechanism by extending dyadic view to network view. It proposes the concept of relative governance and explores its role in shaping a business partner’s perception and behavior. It also provides insightful implications for B2B companies on capturing more benefits from the relationship with buyers by leveraging relative governance strategies.