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The purpose of this research is to seek better relational strategies between formal and informal stakeholder relationships to improve megaproject performance.

The conceptual model was developed with twenty hypotheses based on the literature review. Then a questionnaire survey was conducted, and the collected data were analyzed by Partial Least squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) for validating the proposed model. Finally, the findings were discussed by a comparative study to explain the different effects of the formal and informal relationship on megaproject performance, and the managerial implications are presented for the stakeholders to implement the relationship management in the megaprojects.

The research finding reveals that formal relationship plays a dominating role in cost, quality, and labor protection; meanwhile, it is still more reliable in improving coordination, safety and environmental protection. Both formal and informal relationship is equally important towards collaboration and scheduling while the informal relationship is more effective in communication and project transparency.

The study extends the knowledge of relationship management in the domain of the megaproject performance. It provides a comprehensive and systematic understanding of the impact of formal and informal stakeholder relationships on ten aspects of the megaproject performance by the proposed conceptual model and PLS-SEM results. The research findings contribute to the theory of relationship management on how the different influences between formal and informal stakeholder relationships lead to better megaproject performance from inter-organizational level to project and societal level.

Much of existing research has attempted to explain Asian Growth Paradox through formal institution – role of the government or rule of law. Therefore, this paper attempts to empirically explain the paradox with informal institution including interaction between informal and formal institutions. Two interrelated research questions summarize this research. First, how can we capture the relationship between informal and formal institutions? Then, how is that relationship different for Asian Paradox states vs non-paradox states?

To capture the relationship between informal and formal institutions, we use Helmke and Levitsky (2004)'s framework to categorize the interaction as complementing, competing, substituting and accommodating. We perform cross-sectional regression analysis for more than 130 countries.

We find that the developed, developing and the Asian Paradox states display different patterns of interaction between informal and formal institutions. However, we also find that the interaction effect has a limited value explaining growth for most of these countries, suggesting that Helmke and Levitsky (2004)'s framework has limitations. Finally, we challenge the notion of Asian Paradox states, as countries outside of Asia also qualify as the Paradox states.

Not much empirical effort has examined how different relationships between informal and formal institutions can explain growth internationally across countries. We show that different institutional patterns explain growth across the Paradox states and non-Paradox states.

This paper aims to analyze the influence of governance mechanisms in the generation of relational rents for supplier in short food supply chains (SFSCs).

This study used data from a survey of 181 organic producers in SFSCs, using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with the aid of the SmartPLS® 3 software for the analysis.

The results show the relationship between formal and informal governance mechanisms and relational rents. The predominance of informal mechanisms enabled a higher explanatory power than that provided by formal governance mechanisms. Further, the authors found that the complementary use of governance mechanisms has a stronger impact on generating relational rents. However, contextual factors such as relationship time, power asymmetry and uncertainty in demand have not shown any influence on governance mechanisms for generating relational rents.

The result sheds new light on the relevance of governance mechanisms to foster relational rents to suppliers in SFSCs. It also shows that contextual factors that affect relationships in traditional supply chains do not play a relevant role in SFSCs due to their specific characteristics.

This paper aims to address issues related to informal relationships in modern Russian organisations, namely, the extent of these relationships, the conditions of their existence and their connection with formal relations.

The paper contains a discussion of the relevant theoretical issues and a presentation of empirical research conducted by the authors through a survey of the staff of a number of businesses based in major cities of the Russian Federation. The study also includes an analysis of an expert survey of top managers and an assessment of the role of the informal component in the social and labour cooperation of workers and employers in modern Russian organisations.

It is concluded that with the further advancement of Russia towards establishing an effective market economy, there is a general trend towards a reduction in the role of personal relationships in social and labour relations, although a complete rejection of protectionism in this area is not possible because of certain peculiarities of the Russian mentality.

Knowledge and understanding of the Russian national identity and its influence on the informal component of workplace labour issues will enable managers to be more effective in building and developing modern international business relations.

The paper studies a unique set of empirical data obtained by using authoring tools carefully tailored to the specific conditions of Russia. The results of the study will enable more effective management of informal relations in modern organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying relational properties of security networks by focusing specifically on the relationship between formal and informal ties, and interpersonal and inter-organisational trust.

The research is based on 20 qualitative interviews with senior members of police and security agencies across the field of counter-terrorism in Australia.

The findings suggest that the underlying relational properties of security networks are highly complex, making it difficult to distinguish between formal and informal ties, interpersonal and inter-organisational trust. The findings also address the importance of informal ties and interpersonal trust for the functioning of organisational security networks.

The research is exploratory in nature and extends to a number of organisational security networks in the field of counter-terrorism in Australia. While it is anticipated that the findings will be relevant in a variety of contexts, further research is required to advance our knowledge of the implications and properties of informal social networks within defined network boundaries.

The findings suggest that the functioning of security networks is likely to be highly dependent on the underlying social relationships between network members. This has practical implications for those responsible for designing and managing security networks.

The paper calls attention to a very understudied topic by focusing on the dynamics of informal ties and interpersonal trust within organisational security networks.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of a company’s external informal relationships in the internationalization process.

To achieve the aim of this paper, a qualitative research was undertaken. The data used for analysis were obtained through face-to-face interviews with representatives of 20 companies.

There are two main findings of the research. First, on the basis of the analysis of the interviews, it was possible to identify 14 different outcomes of informal relationships with external actors in the internationalization process. Second, the outcomes have been assigned to different stages of the internationalization process, thereby covering the whole range of a company’s development timeline.

This paper illustrates and confirms the important and positive role of the informal relationships developed by a company with external actors in the internationalization process and indicates that it can change over time depending on the stage of the internationalization.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which both formal and informal control, operating as a package, are implicated in responding to organisational change arising from the introduction of the Australian Federal Government’s Clean Energy Act (2011).

This investigation is based on a review of archival data, and semi-structured interviews conducted with 15 staff at different hierarchical levels within an Australian renewable energy company.

Although formal management control systems and informal control both played important roles in the organisation’s reorientation to organisational change, it was the latter form of control that predominated over the former. The influence of the prevailing organisational culture, however, was pivotal in orchestrating both formal and informal control efforts within this organisation.

This study contributes to management control theory and practice in two ways: first, it provides much needed empirical evidence about the ways in which management controls act as a package; second, it offers insights into the relative importance of the components of a management control package in the context of a particular organisational change. In addition, it responds to Laughlin’s (1991) call for empirical “flesh” to be added to the skeletal framework he advocates to make this conceptualisation of organisational change, “more meaningful”.

The aim of this paper, considering the two types of networks and the scope of power from structural holes, is to clarify the relationship between employees’ performance and their social network structure in Chinese small and medium enterprises from the whole-network perspective. The complicated relationship in Chinese culture requires human resource management (HRM) practitioners to be aware of the implications of social network.

An empirical research approach is used in this paper. Using the cluster sampling method, authors collected 118 employees’ characteristic data and network data by face-to-face interviews through structured questionnaire survey, and also got their performance data from the financial department, which support correlation analysis and OLS regression analysis.

First, informal network, but not formal network, has a significant impact on employees’ performance. Second, individual performance of brokerage is greater for direct than indirect contacts. Finally, broker-of-brokers will be the winner in the competition.

First, previous research focuses on egocentric network as the difficulty of data collection, while this paper analyzes a whole network based on the real social network. Second, this paper reveals the network structure mode where individuals get benefits. Third, it also uncovers the effect of relationship type on employees’ performance in Chinese SME. Finally, this paper identifies the status homophily and status crystallization phenomenon in the process of social network formation.

The paper aims to investigate organizational variables and develop their relationship with horizontal strategy. The cultural dimensions and organization structure have been considered as organizational variables. The study also aims to shed light on the implementation horizontal strategy in conglomerates.

A survey was carried out with 122 conglomerate firms for examination. These companies were chosen to be of different sizes and sectors. The multiple regression analysis was utilized to analyze the data.

The results reveal that conglomerate firms also have a horizontal strategy. Additionally, organizational cultural dimensions namely, collectivism, clan culture, market culture and long-term orientation; formal and informal relationship; and horizontal organization structure (HOS) have positive and significant relationship with horizontal strategy. No significant relationship was found between uncertainty avoidance and adhocracy culture, and horizontal strategy.

The major contributions of this study are explicitly identified as horizontal strategy exists in the conglomerate firms where the few organizational variables play a significant role in horizontal strategy implementation.

This study has been done in an effort to make supporting guidelines to fill the gaps in conglomerate firms. This study offers an effective role of cultural dimensions and structure as drivers of horizontal strategy implementation, and this study spells out and extends the literature and proposes a conceptual framework.

Building on social informational processing theory, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a theoretical model of moderated mediation in which social loafing tendency serves as an intervening mechanism that explains associations among two dimensions of leader–member relationships (formal and informal relationships, namely, leader–member exchange and leader–member guanxi) and customer service performance.

The authors designed a field study to test the hypotheses presented in this paper. A survey of 304 supervisor–employee pairs and matched customers generally provide support for this model.

The authors found that social loafing tendency played a mediating role between leader–member relationships and customer service performance. Co-worker service-oriented OCB moderated the positive relationship between leader–member guanxi and loafing tendency.

More samples should be collected from both private and state-owned company. Both the informal and formal leader–member relationships should be unanimously included in examining how the leader–member relationships influence focal employee’s attitude and behavior, particularly in societies where the informal relationship plays noticeable role.

Managers should properly deal with formal and informal relationship with subordinates.

The influence of leader–member guanxi on employees and organization is controversial in extant literature. In some sense, this finding contributes to extant literature by further clarifying the influence of guanxi on the focal employee’s performance.