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Observes that the group size of some US retail hardware cooperatives increased during the 1990s, as cooperative managements strove to increase the quantity and quality of group members. For example, a 1997 merger doubled the membership of one group. Large size was deemed necessary to achieve the economies of scope and scale needed to compete in an intense retail marketplace. Group research generally shows that large size has a negative impact on group dynamics. The current study examines size of retail hardware cooperative groups in relation to group identification, communication frequency, and relationship effectiveness. Findings show that size does not influence the relationships between the variables in the study. Also, a member’s level of group identification is a primary driver of perceptions of relationship effectiveness. The higher the identification with the group, the more effective the relationship is perceived to be by the member.

Drawing on Foa and Foa’s elaboration of social exchange theory, the authors propose that buyers reciprocate perceived commitment on the part of the salesperson and supplier with commitment on their own parts because of strengthening of the relationship’s tacit governance mechanism – cooperative norms.

This study uses data from 155 buyers doing business with a multinational supplier. The buyers were from firms generating less than $100,000 in billings. The salesforce of the supplier firm sponsoring the research is responsible for account management and communicating directly with buyers.

Buyers, who feel that their suppliers are providing a symbolic, long-term, particularistic benefit (commitment), respond with their own strengthened commitment to the relationship; this mutualism is explained entirely by the mediating effect of the relationship’s cooperative norms. Where buyers perceive generally favorable treatment (satisfaction), without these three qualities, their own reciprocal commitment increases directly and cooperative norms play no part. The results also demonstrate the transition of buyer perceptions of the salesperson as they develop into beliefs about the selling firm as a whole.

Drawing on the “reciprocation-in-kind” principle, supplier firms seeking long-term, open-ended commitment from their customers should cultivate it via similarly long-term and open-ended commitments of their own. Attention must be given to the unwritten, often unstated “rules of the road” for business relationships, as these rules represent the mechanism through which investments in long-term, profitable partnerships bear fruit.

The conceptual model draws on and empirically tests Foa and Foa’s framework within social exchange theory to predict what form of buyer reciprocation will result, based on the characteristics of perceived seller-provided benefits. This study illustrates that the tacit governance structure of a B2B relationship – its cooperative norms – plays a critical role in the strength of a buyer’s commitment to its supplier.

This study aims to evaluate the influence of factors attributed to relationship attractiveness between supplier and customer, from the supplier’s perspective.

The empirical exercise was based on the use of multivariate data analysis with confirmatory factor analysis and a partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling.

The study resulted in a robust model, with a high explanatory factor for the latent variable relational attractiveness and commitment was the most influential factor, followed by expected value and interorganizational trust.

Some limitations of the study can be highlighted: conducting research in a single cooperative and with a single audience; choosing a short-cycle supply chain, which may make it difficult to generalize to other industries; the cross-section nature of data also hinders the analysis to understand how the association between variables of interest may vary over time.

The negative influence of interpersonal trust reinforces the importance of developing collaborative attitudes between parties, whereas the non-significant value for dependence (financial and volume dependence) shows this is not a risk factor for relational attractiveness in a supply chain. Such results provide evidence on how to develop relationship management between suppliers and customers that are part of the same supply chain.

It offers a new perspective for research in cooperatives, which still have no consensus on the motivating factors for members’ participation, including as evidence the results of the largest flower producing center in Latin America. The more a cooperative succeeds in increasing relational attractiveness, the greater the cooperative power and the ability to adapt to shocks and changes, which are fundamental factors for the success and longevity of the cooperative.

The research presents a model that is comprehensive enough to fit in different contexts and consider its specific characteristics. Additionally, this paper has added in-depth information on the relational attractiveness relationships in the context of a developing country.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of organizational identification in the relationship between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. It also examines the moderating roles of worker cooperatives in the relationships of emotional exhaustion with organizational identification and turnover intention.

Surveys of worker cooperatives and capitalist firms in the Seoul metropolitan area were conducted in 2016. The hypotheses of this study were tested through multilevel moderated mediation analyses.

This study revealed that organizational identification partially mediated the relationship between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. The findings of the study provided evidence that worker cooperatives alleviated the adverse relationships of emotional exhaustion with organizational identification and turnover intention.

Since it was conducted with a cross-sectional data set, this study is not free from the issue of causality. However, the findings provide insights into how emotional exhaustion may be associated with organizational identification and turnover intention, and how worker cooperatives may alter these relationships.

Capitalist firms should provide their employees with more autonomy and more opportunities to participate in organizational decision-making, as in worker cooperatives, to induce their employees to hold more positive attitudes.

There is no extant research on the mechanism through which emotional exhaustion is associated with turnover intention via organizational identification, and on the moderating roles of worker cooperatives in this mechanism.

Grounded on resource dependence theory, the authors explored how power and dependence affect sustainability adoption in an artisanal fishing supply chain (AFSC) in Mexico.

An in-depth longitudinal case study was conducted to identify relationships among fishers, a cooperative and intermediaries using a content analysis of data gathered from a combination of interviews, focus groups, observations, participatory workshops and secondary data.

As a result of the existing power imbalance among AFSC members, mediated forces (e.g. rewards for intermediary–fishers relationship) were the most prominent observed. In addition, a close and high dependence on resources affecting supply chain sustainability (SCS) adoption was identified. For example, within intermediary–cooperative relationships, a power imbalance caused mostly by financial resource dependence generated a negative impact on economic sustainability related to unfair prices and unfair trade. The results, thus, showed the detrimental influence of intermediaries among AFSC members on SCS adoption.

A greater understanding of power imbalance and dependence can help AFSC members to identify their weaknesses and develop actions to adopt sustainability.

Unlike previous research, the authors go beyond the often positive research focus of SCS studies and provide, through the resource dependence theory, a longitudinal view on how power imbalance negatively affects SCS adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between relationship commitment, cooperative behavior and alliance performance in agricultural supply chains. By investigating dyadic relationships between companies and their contract farmers (hereafter denoted by C+F), this study aims to investigate how relationship commitment influences cooperative behavior and how such behavior further influences alliance performance in C+F agricultural supply chains in China.

Based on data collected from 202 companies and 462 farmers in China, this study uses the structural equation modeling approach to test the conceptual model and related hypotheses.

For both companies and contract farmers, normative relationship commitment is a necessity for economically and socially cooperative behavior (i.e. specific investment and communication, respectively), while instrumental relationship commitment has no relationship with specific investment. Only socially cooperative behavior (communication) can improve alliance performance, while economically cooperative behavior (specific investment) has no relationship with alliance performance. For companies, instrumental relationship commitment reduces communication, but specific investment increases communication. For farmers, both instrumental relationship commitment and specific investment have no relationship with communication.

This study contributes to the literature on supply chain management by adopting a bilateral perspective and examining relationships among relationship commitment, cooperative behavior and alliance performance in the C+F context. It provides agricultural companies and contract farmers with valuable guidance to use relationship commitment and cooperative behavior to improve alliance performance in agricultural supply chains in China.

Maintaining relationships may be difficult in conflict because strong influence attempts can communicate disrespect, especially among Chinese people. The theory of cooperation and competition was used to investigate the effects of persuasion and control influence attempts and social context in conflict. Results from an experimental study support the reasoning that persuasion communicates respect and develops a cooperative relationship. In contrast, coercion communicates disrespect, develops competitive relationships, and results in rejection of the opposing view and negotiator. Consistent with North American research, cooperative compared to competitive context was found to lead to more openness toward the opposing position and negotiator. These results were interpreted as suggesting that persuasion, communication of respect, and a cooperative context facilitate productive conflict management between Chinese people.

This paper aims to study the impact of existence and lack of discount on the relationships between one manufacturer and one retailer under the cooperative and the non-cooperative games and the members’ profits are compared.

In the first approach, the manufacturer’s price function is constant, and in the second approach, this price function is a decreasing function with respect to lot size. These approaches are modeled through three games structure, including two Stackelberg games and one cooperative game.

Some numerical instances comprising sensitivity analysis are provided, and then the members’ profits in different scenarios are compared. This paper reveals that in the presented models, whether the members are inclined to change their profits.

This paper presents a tool of decision-making for the type of relationships of members in two different circumstances, and an approach is also presented to maximize the members’ profit.

In this paper, the relationships between one manufacturer and one retailer are studied under six different circumstances, where pricing, cooperative advertising and inventory cost are considered simultaneously. Also, a different model is presented to make a balance in individual profits and gain more profit for each member compared to the cooperative and non-cooperative game.

To explore the factors affecting continuity of cooperative electronic supply chain relationships in Taiwanese motor industry.

This study has developed a research framework that integrates the three perspectives of resource dependence, risk perception, and relationship marketing to identify the factors affecting the continuity of a cooperative electronic supply chain. After constructing a structural equation model, empirical testing on 851 raw material and spare parts suppliers for the Taiwanese motor industry was conducted.

All path coefficients in the proposed model were statistically significant, and were as hypothesized. Resource dependence, trust, and relationship commitment are positively related to the continuity of the cooperative electronic relationship. Risk perception is negatively related to the continuity of the cooperative electronic relationship.

This paper has theoretically developed an extensive set of interrelationships among these variables (resource dependency, perceived risk, trust, relationship commitment, and continuity of cooperative electronic relationships), illustrating their comparative effects on supplier intention to use the internet for on‐line transactions.

This empirical study provides consistent support for the proposed business‐to‐business (B2B) e‐commerce acceptance model. Given the high explanatory power of the resulting model, it is likely to serve as the basic model for predicting supplier behavior, and the continuity of enhanced understanding of cooperative electronic relationships.

Previous studies did not fully address the relevant influential factors related to the continuity of cooperative electronic supply chain relationships or the causal relationships among these factors. The primary contribution of this research is the integration of constructs associated with resources, environmental uncertainty, and relationship marketing, into a coherent model that jointly predicts supplier acceptance of e‐commerce.

This study aims to explore the relationship among five types of power (expert, referent, legitimate, reward and coercive power), two dimensions of cooperative behavior (specific investments and communication) and three types of alliance performance (alliance stability, income increase and cost decrease) in contract farming. By investigating the dyadic perspectives of companies and contract farmers, the authors examine how power use influences cooperative behavior, which further enhances alliance performance.

The authors construct a theoretical model grounded on resource dependence theory (RDT). Data from 202 companies and 462 farmers in China are used to test the proposed hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

The authors' results show that the five types of power play different roles in cooperative behavior. On the one hand, farmers' expert, reward and coercive power enhance the company's specific investments; farmers' expert power enhances the company's communication but farmers' coercive power harms the company's communication. Also the company's specific investments enhance communication that is positively related to alliance ability, income increase and cost decrease. On the other hand, the company's expert, referent and legitimate power enhance farmers' communication, while the company's coercive power harms farmers' communication; the company's reward and coercive power enhance farmers' specific investments. Moreover, farmers' communication is positively related to alliance ability, income increase and cost decrease, but farmers' specific investments do not significantly influence such.

This study contributes to the literature on contract farming supply chain management by examining the relationships among power use, cooperative behavior and alliance performance from the dyadic perspective of companies and farmers. These findings have practical implications for agricultural companies and farmers promoting cooperative behavior and alliance performance through appropriate power use in contract farming supply chains.