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Although the importance of green supplier integration (GSI) has been recognized, the knowledge of how it can be enhanced is still limited. Using insights from transaction cost and resource dependence theories, this paper aims to explore how to balance coercive and non-coercive powers to enhance GSI and the mediating role of relationship commitment and the moderating role of relationship closeness.

To validate the hypotheses, this study conducted hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping using the survey data collected from 206 Chinese manufacturers.

The results indicate that coercive power undermines normative commitment, while non-coercive power promotes normative and instrumental commitments. Both normative and instrumental commitments enhance GSI. Normative commitment mediates the impacts of coercive and non-coercive powers on GSI, while instrumental commitment only mediates the impact of non-coercive power on GSI. Moreover, supplier trust and dependence negatively moderate the positive link between instrumental commitment and GSI.

Executives should carefully balance coercive and non-coercive powers to encourage firms to maintain good relationships with suppliers and develop common environmental values under different mediating effects of normative and instrumental commitments. However, they should also be aware that high level of trust and dependence can affect the impacts of powers.

This study contributes to GSI literature by opening the “black box” between power and GSI and verifying its boundary conditions.

This study aims to examine the relationships between power, relationship commitment and customer integration by replicating and extending Zhao et al. (2008) in China and the USA.

This study collects data from 210 manufacturers in China and 202 manufacturers in the USA. In this study, structural equation modelling is used to analyse the data.

This study finds that normative relationship commitment is positively associated with customer integration and expert and referent power are positively associated with normative relationship commitment in China and the USA. Reward and coercive power are positively associated with instrumental relationship commitment in China, whereas referent power is negatively associated. Referent, legal legitimate and reward power are positively associated with instrumental relationship commitment in the USA, whereas expert and legitimate power are negatively associated.

This study provides empirical evidence on the distinct impacts of different bases of mediated and non-mediated power in China and the USA, contributing to the development of the power-relationship commitment theory. The findings also provide insights into where and when the theory applies. The results can provide guidelines for managers to adjust the use of power to improve relationship commitment and customer integration in China and the USA.

This paper reports the results of a three-year-long research on business relationships, relying on qualitative data gathered through multiple-case study research of four focal companies operating in Australia. The industry settings are as follows: steel construction, vegetable oils trading, aluminum and steel can manufacture, and imaging solutions. The research analyzes two main aspects of relationships: structure and process. This paper deals with structure describing it by the most desired features of intercompany relationships for each focal company. The primary research data have been coded drawing on extant research into business relationships. The main outcome of this part of the research is a five construct model composed by trust, commitment, bonds, distance, and information sharing that accounts for all informants’ utterances about relationship structure.

As supply chain sustainability has become more urgent than ever before, this study aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how supplying firms’ sustainability motives influence their compliance and commitment, as well as sustainable performance, as they respond to buyers’ sustainable supplier management programs.

To investigate the intriguing links among sustainability motives, compliance/commitment and sustainable performance of supplying firms, this paper draws on multidisciplinary literature and collects empirical data from 281 supplying firms in China to test the proposed model and hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

Instrumental and moral motives make comparable contributions to compliance; moral motives exert stronger influence on firms’ commitment to sustainable practices. In addition, although compliance has a greater impact on economic and environmental performance, commitment is far more robust in improving environmental and social performance.

Unlike most research on motives that has been theoretical, this study represents one of the few empirical analyses of how motives may affect sustainable performance. Examining the challenges from the perspectives of supplying firms, it also adds to the SSCM literature by making clear how compliance and commitment may differentially predict sustainable performance.

Although instrumental and moral motives can be complementary in advancing sustainable practices, it is imperative for firms to integrate moral considerations into sustainability decision-making and move beyond compliance, if they are to contribute meaningfully to a better society and cleaner environment.

This is the first large-scale empirical investigation on the links among motives, compliance, commitment and sustainable performance from the perspectives of suppliers.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework involving dependence, relationship commitment, logistics outsourcing and service quality to exhibit the roles of the relational factors involved in logistics outsourcing and their outcomes.

Based on data collected from 361 companies in Greater China, the authors use the structural equation model approach to examine the hypothesized relationships.

Both normative and instrumental relationship commitment are necessary for third party logistics (3PL) users to cope with their goal dependence on 3PL providers. However, only normative relationship commitment is necessary when users perceive switch dependence. Normative relationship commitment also plays a more important role than instrumental relationship commitment in facilitating the adoption of 3PL logistic outsourcing. In addition, both basic and advanced outsourcing practices have a positive effect on service quality.

This study contributes to both 3PL theories and practices by clarifying how relationships between 3PL users and providers in China are managed.

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.

Engaging suppliers in joint innovation can be an effective means for buyer firms to overcome internal resource/capability limitations. The purpose of this research is to investigate the impacts of cultural and trust congruences between the supplier and buyer firms on joint innovation. In addition, we examine the relationship commitment as an antecedent of cultural and trust congruences.

The study constructs a theoretical model based on social exchange theory (SET) and examines it using data from Chinese manufacturing firms.

The results suggest that cultural and trust congruences between suppliers and buyers positively influence joint processes and product innovations. Furthermore, we find that while normative relationship commitments of supplier firms promote cultural and trust congruences with buyers, instrumental relationship commitments only positively affect trust congruence.

This study enhances our understanding of social exchanges by adopting a dyadic view to examine the interconnectedness between relationship commitment, cultural and trust congruences, and joint innovation. These findings also offer practical managerial implications for managing collaborative innovation projects.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how a combination of Normative Commitment (NC) and Instrumental Commitment (IC) affects the creation of budgetary slack when the decision-making mode is individual versus group.

We use 86 students in a two-by-two experimental design (individuals vs. groups and a combination of NC/IC vs. no NC/IC), fully crossed between participants, to examine the combined effects of NC/IC on budgetary slack creation by individuals and group members.

The results show that groups without NC/IC create the highest budgetary slack and differ from the other three experimental cells (groups with NC/IC and individuals with and without NC/IC). In addition, individuals with NC/IC also differ from individuals without NC/IC.

Research limitations are formation of groups, validity threats common to laboratory experiments, and generalizability of the findings. We do not believe these limitations are affecting the results.

As organizations continue to increase the use of group decision-making for setting their budgets, they may want to monitor groups with low NC/IC due to higher slack creation.

Use of groups can impact prosocial behavior via creating a “label” and/or forming social ties in budgeting.

This study extends budgetary slack creation under individuals versus group decision-making, introduces the combined effects of NC/IC as a psychological contract to the accounting literature, and examines the combined NC/IC effect on groups as compared to individuals.

This paper aims to examine the de-internationalization process to determine how different forms of attitudinal commitment influence the de-internationalization process.

Because of the exploratory nature of the study, a case study design is used. Two cases of Swedish companies, which de-internationalize from the French market, are studied.

Different commitment profiles influence the de-internationalization process. In particular, a general commitment profile, in which affective, normative, instrumental and continuance commitment play a role, influences the timing of de-internationalization, while the effort directed toward the execution of de-internationalization is mainly influenced by normative commitment and the extent of de-internationalization mainly by instrumental commitment.

By offering three propositions regarding the four types of commitment and the effects of these commitment types on the process of de-internationalization, the authors contribute to the literature on de-internationalization and the commitment literature.

The findings suggest that there is a risk that managers continue to commit resources to a market for a longer period without clear benefits because of affective and continuance commitment. As local employees persist in committing to the local market because of continuance commitment, offering viable alternatives reduces commitment to the foreign operations.

Distinguishing between different types of commitment, the paper builds on a more fine-grained typology of commitment than previous internationalization literature. Thereby, the paper opens up for new insights in the de-internationalization process.