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This study aims to explore how relationship trust and different types of influence strategy (i.e., non-coercive and coercive influence strategy) impact green customer integration (GCI), while investigating the moderating mechanisms of big data development and social capital.

Following hierarchical linear regression analysis, the authors examine hypothesized relationships by combining survey data from 206 Chinese manufacturers with secondary data.

The results show that relationship trust positively affects non-coercive influence strategy, while its impact on coercive influence strategy is insignificant. Non-coercive influence strategy has an inverted U-shaped impact on GCI. Furthermore, big data development flattens the inverted U-shaped relationship between non-coercive influence strategy and GCI. Conversely, social capital steepens the inverted U-shaped relationship between non-coercive influence strategy and GCI.

This study sheds light on managers on how to involve customers in GCI through friendly strategies that favor the involvement of customers and the willingness to develop environmentally friendly initiatives.

Although GCI has received widespread attention, how it can be enhanced remains unclear. These findings provide novel insights into the emerging GCI literature and complement social exchange theory.

Previous studies have investigated the influence strategy–economic satisfaction links within a pairwise framework. This study aims to reexamine this issue in a network context from both the structural and relational embeddedness perspectives.

An ego network approach in which the network consists of a focal distributor, other distributors and alternate manufacturers is adopted to measure the distributor’s network. Drawing on data from 124 distributors from China’s tire industry, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses.

The empirical results find a positive relationship between a manufacturer’s noncoercive influence strategies and the distributor’s economic satisfaction and an inverse U-shaped relationship between coercive influence strategies and economic satisfaction. It discusses the joint effects of coercive and noncoercive influence strategies and finds that the former mitigate the positive effects of the latter and that the latter flatten the inverse-U shaped effect of the former. Further, when a distributor spans rich structural holes, the effects of coercive and noncoercive influence strategies on economic satisfaction weaken. When a distributor has strong ties with its network members, the effects of noncoercive influence strategies are mitigated, while the effects of coercive influence strategies are enhanced.

This study provides implications for manufacturers, particularly concerning how to properly exert influence strategies to improve distributors’ economic satisfaction. Manufacturers should consider the attributes of the networks in which the distributors are embedded, involving structural holes and tie strength. They should also carefully use the two influence strategies simultaneously.

This study contributes to the influence strategy literature by incorporating a network perspective by empirically examining the different moderating effects of structural holes and tie strength; provides a new and powerful explanation for the effects that coercive influence strategies have on economic satisfaction by testing an inverse U-shaped effect; and examines the effects of the interaction of two strategies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how relative power and mutual commitment affect partners’ choice of influence strategies and how national culture may moderate these effects in the context of international strategic alliances.

In two experiments involving US and Chinese managers, respectively, the study looks into situations wherein a party’s power is lower, equal or higher, all relative to the other party, and there is high versus low mutual commitment between the two parties. The effects of relative power and mutual commitment on influence strategies are also compared between US and Chinese managers.

There is no significant difference between low and equal power with regard to choice of influence strategies. However, moving from a low/equal power to a high-power position, a party’s use of integrative (non-mediated) communications decreased significantly, whereas the use of coercive (mediated) communications increased significantly. The results also show that the effect of relative power is greater when mutual commitment is low than when mutual commitment is high. Finally, there is evidence that the effect of power is stronger for the Americans, whereas the effect of commitment is stronger for the Chinese.

The paper offers a finer account of power relations wherein a party’s power is lower than, equal to or higher than that of the other party and explores the moderating effect role of national culture on the linkages from relative power and relationship commitment to influence strategy use.

The purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding of how relational embeddedness offers marketing channel partners both benefits and hazards. The nonlinear effect of relational embeddedness on channel opportunism is investigated. Influence strategies (i.e. coercive and noncoercive influence) are also examined as mediators of this nonlinear effect.

Survey data are gathered from a sample of 149 manufacturers in China. The hypotheses are tested through regression analysis.

The results support the hypothesis that relational embeddedness has a U-shaped effect on opportunism, and that this relationship can be mediated through noncoercive influence strategies. The results also indicate that coercive influence has an inverted U-shaped effect and noncoercive influence has a U-shaped effect on opportunism.

This research serves as a launching point for further investigations into the “black box” of the double-edged effects of relational embeddedness. Other channel behavior constructs can be explored in future studies.

Firms should be aware of the benefits and pitfalls associated with relational embeddedness in marketing channels. They should be alert to using influence strategies when managing channel opportunism.

This study addresses the dilemma of embeddedness in marketing channel relationships and reveals its causes and mechanisms by exploring the mediating effects of influence strategies.

This study aims to investigate how relationship conflict (RC) hinders green customer integration (GCI) and which strategy could be developed to alleviate the negative effect of RC.

The authors use a sample of 206 Chinese firms to examine hypothesized relationships drawing on social exchange theory and buyer-supplier relationship perspective. Methods including exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis are used to assess reliability and validity. Hypotheses are tested using hierarchical regression analysis. Post hoc analysis is adopted to evaluate the robustness.

The results show that RC negatively relates to GCI. Normative commitment partially mediates the relationship between RC and GCI, while the mediating role of instrumental commitment is insignificant. In addition, coercive influence strategy positively moderates the RC-normative commitment and RC-GCI relationships.

While this study clarifies the mechanism of how RC impedes GCI and how to address RC in buyer-supplier relationships, it could be more meaningful to extend the current research and figure out how to address RC in different supply chain relationships. Besides, it will make sense to conduct longitudinal studies and explore the dynamic nature of RC in supply chain relationships.

In practice, firms find it challenging to achieve GCI owing to the ubiquitous existence of RC. The findings reveal that RC detriments GCI partially through normative commitment, and the use of coercive influence strategy mitigates the detriments of RC. Thus, the authors provide solutions for firms to address RC for achieving GCI.

RC is unavoidable in organizational interactions. Prior studies have not revealed the processes through which RC relates to GCI. The authors bridge the gap by exploring the mediating role of organizational commitment and the moderating role of influence strategy, which offers a better understanding of how RC is associated with GCI, and add knowledge of addressing RC for achieving GCI.

In contrast to many studies that were conducted in a Western context, this study seeks to extend the understanding and empirical findings on power, dependence, and interfirm influence strategies by examining these issues within a channel of distribution in Singapore. Research hypotheses are developed, centering on the relationship between a manufacturer’s power and its use of coercive and noncoercive influence strategies as well as the reciprocal use of coercive and noncoercive influence strategies in the channel dyad. Data from a field study of personal computer dealers are used in testing the research hypotheses. In contrast to most previous studies, a multiple‐item measure of influence strategies is used. Among the findings is that a manufacturer in this channel setting tends to use both coercive and noncoercive influence strategies in influencing its dealers.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a guidance for boundary personnel regarding how to use influence strategies to increase channel satisfaction across relationship development process.

This paper investigates the use of influence strategies and their impact on channel satisfaction across formation, operation, and maintenance stage from Das and Teng's viewpoint. The sample from Taiwanese manufacture in electronic, information and motors industry involving buyer‐supplier relationships, and asks respondents (sales manager) to select a newer customer to complete a questionnaire for enable sufficient responses to be obtained, representing different stages of the buyer‐supplier relationship.

The results indicate that the frequency of requests, promises, legalistic pleas, and threat strategies differ significantly among relationship stages. Additionally, information exchange, recommendations, and request strategies have dramatic effect on channel satisfaction across different stages.

This paper proposes the most appropriate model for channel managers to apply influence strategies judiciously in each relationship stage.

Despite the critical role of the industrial buying situation in shaping buyer behavior and seller response, little research has been conducted to augment extant knowledge on the subject. To fill this gap, this article focuses on influence strategies that industrial buyers exert on their suppliers in different buying situations.

The study received information from 122 Greek producers of industrial goods through a mail survey based on a semi‐structured questionnaire. This incorporated 24 influence strategies equally divided into six groups (legalistic, coercive, reward, expert, referent, and informational), and respondents were asked to specify their degree of agreement or disagreement, whether these are used by their customers in three buying situations (straight re‐buy, modified re‐buy, and new task).

The study revealed that: industrial customers use a wide array of influence strategies, with those based on referent, expert, or legalistic sources being more widely employed; influence strategies vary in degree of application according to buying situation, and are least used by new‐task buyers; and straight re‐buyers tend to make greater use of expert, referent, and, to some extent, legalistic influence strategies, while modified re‐buyers employ more coercive and, to a lesser extent, information‐based influence strategies. Overall, influence strategies play an important role in industrial buying behavior, requiring sellers to treat customers differently in each buying situation.

Several suggestions for future research are provided, such as replicating the study in different geographic contexts, monitoring changes of influence strategies as a buyer moves from one buying situation to another, and investigating the countervailing actions taken by suppliers.

This study aims to examine the means by which influence strategies and social mechanisms (trust and shared vision) influence the flexibility of suppliers, and its ultimate effect on the performance of manufacturers.

This study bases the major components of marketing research on previous studies related to influence strategies and flexibility in the supply‐chain. This empirical study utilized 162 SMIT survey samples.

Results show that using coercive influence strategies and developing a shared vision promote supplier flexibility and fully mediate the effects of trust on supplier flexibility. In addition, supplier flexibility has a significant positive impact on the performance of manufacturers.

The perceptions of manufacturers regarding influence strategies and social mechanisms formed the basis of this study. Future studies could focus on the reciprocal strategies of suppliers, and the influence of these actions on the effectiveness of the influence strategies employed by manufacturers.

This paper adds to the existing management guidelines addressing the problem of ensuring increased flexibility from suppliers to enable a more rapid response to the demands of customers to enhance performance.

The paper provides novel insights into the impact of influence strategies and social mechanisms on the flexibility of suppliers.

This paper aims to uncover the relationships between marital power and influence strategies used during couples' vacation decision processes. Marital power includes two dimensions: the first dimension is objective and composed of actual economic resources; the second is subjective and composed of feelings such as spousal love or self‐esteem.

192 couples completed a questionnaire that included statements describing different influence strategies utilized during the vacation purchase‐decision process; respondents indicated the frequency with which they employed each strategy.

Subjective marital power is associated with the use of spousal influence strategies. Objective marital power does not predict the use of these strategies.

These findings highlight a hitherto understudied aspect of marital power – subjective power.

Consumer researchers and vacation marketers should take into account the subjective marital power balance and its impact on influence strategies during couples' vacation decision processes.

This study shows that during a vacation decision process, the marital power balance between partners impacts on the choice of spousal influence strategies. Secondly, economic power is not the dominant factor that affects the choice of influence strategy; rather, interpersonal power is influential in the use of spousal influence strategies during the vacation decision process.