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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.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how the use of governance mechanisms in buyer-supplier relationships in the supply chain (SC) are related to the maturity of relationships and the generation of relational rents.

Several studies have analysed interorganisational governance in SCs. However, to the best of the knowledge, no study has focussed on the use of different types of governance mechanisms through maturity stages in buyer-supplier relationships and as a consequence, its relational rents. The aim of this paper is to analyse how the use of governance mechanisms in buyer-supplier relationships in the SC are related to the maturity of relationships and the generation of relational rents. To achieve this goal, this paper carried out multiple case studies.

The results show that changes in the use of formal and informal governance mechanisms contribute to the generation of relational rents and relationship continuity. This paper identified that a reduction in power asymmetry by the buyer may allow for the greater use of informal governance mechanisms and greater relational rents. Moreover, the paper highlights that a relationship might advance or regress throughout the maturity stages, according to the commitment of the buyer to maintain the relationship with the supplier.

The study has the limitation of having chosen polar case studies in the organic sector in Brazil to illustrate the theoretical discussion and propose a model to be tested via further research. This study considered institutional factors in the analysis that might not affect dyadic relationships in other sectors and countries.

As a managerial contribution, the results indicate that when the buyer uses both kinds of mechanisms complementarily and encourages the utilisation of informal mechanisms, relationships become more resilient to adverse events.

The study also contributes towards valuing the role of organic farmers and encourages the government and business community to reflect on the challenges and opportunities in the sector.

Based on four propositions created by evaluating both the empirical data and previous literature, this paper proposes a buyer-supplier relationship maturity model rather than an overall SC maturity model. This paper also elaborated on the arguments of Dyer et al. (2018), proposing a causal explanation of how a relationship might advance or regress throughout the maturity stages, according to the commitment of the buyer to maintain the relationship with the supplier using governance mechanisms. This change in maturity stages, in turn, affects relational rents for the dyad.

The purpose of this study is to explore if and how informal governance mechanisms are used for coordinating actors of digitalized supply networks.

A multiple case study analysis of ten German firms in digitalized supply networks is conducted. Data are collected through semi-structured expert interviews with interviewees having notable years of professional experience in purchasing or sales.

This research shows that reduced personal contacts in digitalized supply networks decrease the ability to coordinate with informal governance mechanisms. However, the need for informal governance in digitalized supply networks remains when facing supply network disruptions or building new business relationships.

This is the first study examining the role of informal governance mechanisms in digitalized supply networks. Theoretical and practical insights on the changing abilities and needs to use informal governance after the digital transformation are given.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the formal and informal governance mechanisms of state-owned enterprises operating in a post-transitional economy of Poland.

The study combines legal analysis of Polish regulations in force, review of literature on the Poland’s institutional legacy, and a statistical analysis, based on a data set of 204 management board members, 180 external supervisory board members, and 114 state officials supervising Polish SOEs in 2011.

Legally designed relationships among the management board, supervisory board, and the state treasury, represented by the minister and ministry officials, constitute the key formal governance mechanisms in Polish SOEs. They are, however, complemented by relationships between SOEs and their stakeholders and distorted by other informal phenomena, including informal noninstitutional behavior, mechanisms grounded in cognitive and normative institutions, and perception of the relationship structure by the actors themselves. As a result, key corporate governance actors differ in their perception of governance influences upon SOEs.

This study contributes to policymaking by helping authorities gain a better understanding of the governance challenges in SOEs.

This paper is one of the first and few empirical studies investigating the issue of formal and informal governance mechanisms in SOEs in post-transitional economies of CEE.

This study aims to investigate how contractual vs. informal governance influences the performance of collaborative innovation projects considering their exploitation vs. exploration character.

Data are collected from a sample of 218 companies that have developed innovative projects in collaboration with other organizations. Regression models are estimated to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that contractual governance is the most effective for co-exploitation projects compared to informal governance. Specialization in either contractual or informal governance is more effective for co-exploration projects.

Developing collaborative innovation projects with other organizations is an alternative for firms to innovate either by exploiting complementary assets or by exploring new opportunities. Thus, the success of the collaborative innovation project is significantly affected by the way the collaboration is governed. On the one hand, for co-exploitation projects, companies should rely on contracts to improve their performance. On the other hand, for co-exploration projects, governance may specialize in either contracts or informal mechanisms to reach higher performance.

Despite previous studies analyzing the effect of contractual or informal governance on the performance of collaborative innovation projects, no research has focused on comparing simultaneously these effects, by using the innovation character of the project of co-exploitation or co-exploration as a moderator. Therefore, this paper explores comparatively the most effective type of governance mechanism for co-exploitation and co-exploration projects.

Recent literature has highlighted the importance of quality and governance in supply networks. Usually, the relationships between the actors are complex, comprising both formal and informal interactions. Despite recent advances in quality and governance in supply networks, extant literature highlights the lack of quality in healthcare supply-chain networks in relation to governance mechanisms. This paper aims to investigate the role of governance mechanisms and their influence on the quality of healthcare supply networks, and assumes that governance instruments can support quality performance.

A multiple-case research approach was employed. Six organisations in the Brazilian healthcare sector were analysed (four operate only with renal replacement therapy, one is a material supplier, and one operates with renal replacement therapy and collective procurement).

Findings showed that there is no formalised supply network structure in these organisations. A possible consequence of this is that the supply-network governance is dominated by informal relationships. In the quality dimension, managers' awareness is limited, but there are mechanisms in place to control the quality of the materials.

Healthcare managers can actively invest in the social aspects of the relationship between buyer and supplier, such as trust and commitment, thus increasing responsiveness in patient care. However, this informal procedure can lead to problems with tracking and reliability, ultimately leading to quality problems. Therefore, it is recommended that formal and informal governance instruments be used jointly to improve service quality.

This study suggests that the integration of formal and informal mechanisms of governance can improve the quality of supply networks. Additionally, if the administrative process is purely formal, network relationships and their efficiency will be impaired.

This paper aims to examine how the dynamic interplay of governance mechanisms of the university-firm R&D alliance reduces obstacles and enables the successful commercialization of research collaboration output.

A longitudinal case research and retrospective strategy were used to collect relevant data and information in the four university-and-firm alliance teams collaborating on R&D projects in Thailand during 2008-2014. In-depth interviews and meetings were conducted with representatives of all partners and R&D project teams.

The authors found that formal and informal control mechanisms act as complementary forms of governance. The informal control (trust) serves as the frame of intentions whether the formal control is interpreted as a guideline or a commitment. Both formal and informal control mechanisms must be put in place to successfully and sustainably develop collaborative research into a commercial product.

This study investigated four Thai government-funded research collaboration teams from a single industry. It would be worth investigating such research collaboration in other industries and those without any government funding.

This study applied an exploratory case research method which is rarely used in research on R&D alliance teams. It generates cross-functional insights on how to build trust in such R&D context, especially in an emerging economy.

Within the context of a sustainable supply chain, the purpose of this paper is to report on empirical longitudinal research on supply chain network evolution and dynamics of governance in a multi‐stakeholder supply chain sustainability initiative led by Nespresso, the speciality coffee division of Nestlé.

The paper proposes a framework to study the creation and evolution of governance mechanisms over a five‐year period. Data from 48 semi‐structured interviews and 15 recent and historic documents were also analysed. The interviews were conducted among current and past representatives of all the organisations concerned including coffee traders, NGOs and farmers.

In contrast with literature on the subject, governance mechanisms initially relied mostly on informal mechanisms. Formal governance mechanisms were incorporated into the relationships to enable the supply chain network to grow and to provide clarity to all actors. Relational quality processes that increased trust were critical elements in the early phase, and were explicitly built into a second phase of development.

Being a single case study, some caution needs to be applied to generalise findings beyond the specific context studied. An additional methodological limitation is the limited number of actors involved in the overall supply chain network.

The paper shows the importance of treating governance mechanisms within the supply chain not as a fixed variable to be determined once and for all in the beginning of a relationship, but rather to adapt the coordination mechanisms of the relationships.

The evolution of relationships over time has been “often called for but rarely chosen”. The case highlights the potential benefits of this type of research to develop an understanding of the evolution of relationships in a supply chain network.

This paper aims to investigate the co-evolve relationship between informal relational governance (i.e. family involvement and personal authority) and family formal governance system in the process of growth and transformation. This co-evolve relationship is especially affected by the external institutional environment and market competition power. Thus, in the comprehensive process of deepening the reform and changing market, the modern transformation of family business means that rediscovery of unique superiority of family business and the core of this transformation is the governance of status privileges and private interests.

To test the hypotheses, this paper uses the 9th Chinese Private Enterprise Survey in 2010. A total of 4,900 questionnaires are issued, 4,614 are recovered and the total recovery rate is 94.16%. After clean the data, the study obtained 1,239 samples. To overcome the possible existence of heteroscedasticity, this study uses the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) to estimate the model. Besides, as for dummy dependent variables, this study uses logistics regression.

This paper makes an empirical test for the evolution of family governance driven by institutional change and organizational growth willingness in the process of growth and transformation, including a co-evolve relationship between family involvement and governance institution. Meanwhile, the empirical analysis comes to the conclusion that the institutional constraint to relational governance improves firm performance, which further promotes the modern transformation of family business governance.

It is the key to transformation to the modern corporate organization that family business could beyond the intervention of the traditional nepotism, patriarchal authority and family will. The fundamental of this process is to take advantage of formal institutions to manage family power.

This paper discusses the modern transformation of the formal organization from the perspective of modern ideal dominant type proposed by Max Weber. Modern organization is a hybrid system of the non-personified and personified institution. The primary reason why modern organization suffered erosion and destruction is that informal institution (status and relationship network) were endowed with legal privileges and private interests in modern organization including family business. The governance of privileges and private interests has become the core issue that whether the family business could play an instrumental value and realize modern transformation successfully.