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This paper aims to investigate the antecedents of manufacturing firms’ long-term orientation towards their suppliers in the context of outsourcing relationships in China.

Based on survey data collected from 224 manufacturing firms in China, this study examines the hypothesized relationships.

The results show that task conflict has a negative effect on long-term orientation, both Chinese guanxi and formal control are useful governance mechanisms to enhance long-term orientation, and the negative effect of task conflict on the long-term orientation weakens as Chinese guanxi between a manufacturer and its supplier increases.

This study contributes to a better understanding of conflict management in outsourcing relationships in China.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how to align purchasing portfolio management with sourcing negotiation styles.

The authors have adopted two-step field tests: a case study; and a follow-up experimental test with 77 sourcing professionals.

The authors note that Kraljic Portfolio Matrix (KPM) provides a valuable guide for determining sourcing negotiation styles (i.e. competitive negotiation for leverage items, collaborative negotiation for strategic items and accommodative negotiation for bottleneck items). Interestingly, effective buyers adopt right negotiation styles based on the switching costs of changing suppliers, the dependence level on specific suppliers and the availability of alternative suppliers.

This study shows that aligning purchasing portfolio management with sourcing negotiation styles improves the chances of effective buying outcomes. Practical implications suggest that successful buyers move beyond interpreting generic predictions of the KPM framework and rather implement specific negotiation styles to maximize the potential benefits of purchasing portfolio management.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how ethical leadership and formal control systems influence employee opportunistic behavior.

Using survey data collected from Chinese employees (N=430), the authors conducted regression analysis to test hypothesized relationships between ethical leadership and formal control systems and employee opportunistic behavior. Both direct effects and an interaction effect were tested.

The authors found that both ethical leadership and formal control systems individually play significant roles in reducing employee opportunistic behavior. In addition, the results indicate that ethical leadership and formal control systems function as complements to jointly constrain employee opportunistic behaviors.

This study contributes to an understanding of the relationship between supervisors and followers in China by demonstrating the effects of ethical leadership and formal control systems on employee opportunistic behaviors, including an interesting interaction effect.