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Although the differential roles of political and business ties are recognized in the literature, the interplay between political and business ties remains unclear. This study aims to explore how political ties affect the formation of business ties with unfamiliar partners by analyzing how a buyer’s political ties affect the market-based selection of suppliers, an important channel through which the buyer forms business ties with unfamiliar suppliers.

A survey of 204 Chinese manufacturing firms was conducted to elucidate the relationship between political ties and the market-based selection of suppliers.

The findings suggest that buyers with strong political ties are more likely to engage in the market-based selection of suppliers; this positive relationship is diminished when social control is preferred over contractual control in the buyer’s supplier governance and is enhanced when technological uncertainty is high.

First, this study sheds light on the interplay between political and business ties by revealing how the buyer’s political ties affect the formation of business ties with unfamiliar suppliers, as represented by the market-based selection of suppliers. Second, it uncovers the boundary conditions of the effect of political ties by revealing the moderating effect of social control preference and technological uncertainty. Third, it extends the interorganizational governance structure literature from its focus on the complement-substitute debate on social control and contractual control to examine the contingent effect of a hybrid governance structure.

The purpose of this paper is to examine an important yet underexplored research question in the literature: What determines the length of contract governing buyer–supplier relationships during market transitions? The length of contract is a solid indicator of the comprehensiveness of a contract. By integrating transaction costs economics, the embeddedness perspective and the institution-based view, the paper develops a model that incorporates specific investments and perceived opportunism, strategies to select suppliers and buyer firms’ confidence in the institutional environment. It further posits how buyer firms’ dependence on suppliers moderates these relationships.

Data were collected nationwide via face-to-face interviews with 328 executives in 164 Chinese firms who shared information pertaining to 774 buyer–supplier contracts. A fine-grained mixed-empirical method was designed to test the proposed hypotheses, to confirm the reliability and to generalize the research findings.

All the proposed factors significantly influence the length of the contract. Results obtained through a moderated mediating model suggest that buyers with supplier-specific investments and that choose market-based selection relative to a relationship-based tend to perceive more opportunism in buyer–supplier relationships, which will lead to shortening the length of the contract. However, the buyer’s perception of opportunism will decrease when buyers perceive higher levels of confidence in their legal institutions.

The study discusses several practical implications for B2B managers who typically involve in interfirm exchanges as well as for emerging economies’ institutions.

Leveraging theoretical insights from transaction cost economics, the institution-based view and buyer–supplier relationships literature, this empirical study adds unique contributions to B2B research in general and emerging economies’ institutional literature in particular.

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has created disruptions across the supply chain that are beyond the resources of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to effectively deal with. This study aims to examine the idea that top managers' business and political ties can play direct roles in enhancing SCR in SMEs during COVID-19 by providing access to valuable resources. The study further investigates integrative capability as an underlying mechanism through which the effects of business and political ties can be transformed into enhanced SCR.

Responses from 217 SMEs in the country of Jordan were received via an online survey. The measurement and structural models were tested using the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique.

The study found that business and political ties are positively related to SCR. However, integrative capability fully mediates the relationship between business ties and SCR, whereas it partially mediates the relationship between political ties and SCR.

The study examined only the direct and indirect impacts of business and political ties on SCR. It could be extended by exploring the conditions under which they influence SCR.

The study explicates the role of top managers' business and political ties on improving SCR in a developing country context. It further examines the mediating role of integrative capability in the relationships between business and political ties and SCR.

While co-innovation with third parties (e.g. customer or supplier) has been widely documented, the literature seems to pay scant attention on co-innovation with business partners. Building on the resource dependence theory (RDT) and the input-process-output model, the purpose of this paper is to examine how four criteria of business partner selection affect service delivery co-innovation, which, in turn, influences firms’ competitive advantage.

A mail survey was sent to 600 IT service firms in Taiwan, the target respondents being senior marketing managers in charge of collaborative new service development. A total of 120 usable questionnaires were collected, for a response rate of 20 percent.

The findings support the argument that all four criteria of business partner selection have positive relationships with service delivery co-innovation. Meanwhile, adopting these criteria, firms’ service delivery co-innovation is able to create superior competitive advantage.

The findings enrich the existing literature by proposing and empirically confirming that the use of appropriate criteria to select business partners enhances the effectiveness of firms’ service delivery co-innovation and competitive advantage.

Managers must be aware of the criteria to select their business partners, in terms of developing service delivery co-innovation.

This study adds to the service innovation literature by providing support for the RDT that partner reliability, partner complementarity, partner expertise, and partner compatibility are important business partner selection criteria to create service delivery co-innovation and achieve firms’ competitive advantage.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the deployment of market-based resources influence trade show (TS) organizers’ performance effectiveness as measured with exhibitor and visitor attendance levels. To this end, the study synthesizes several market-based resources including TS longevity, TS webpage interactivity, industry association support, exhibition duration and exhibition area, and investigates how their deployments affect TS attendance levels.

A cross-sectional dataset was compiled on 79 TSs by searching a variety of online sources. Organizers’ performance effectiveness was measured using TS attendance levels. The extent to which organizers deployed market-based resources was likewise quantified using hard data. A series of regression models was estimated to isolate the effect of the market-based resources on TS attendance levels.

The results demonstrate the existence of positive relationships between market-based resources and TS attendance levels which are characterized by diminishing returns. More specifically, the authors found that as the amount of the deployment of the market-based resources increases, their incremental contributions to TS attendance levels become smaller.

The findings offer comprehensive managerial insights about how organizers can improve their attendance levels by carefully deploying market-based resources.

The few available works that try to address the question of why some TSs are well attended while others are not rely on the opinions of exhibitors and visitors. This study attempts to address the same question from the organizers perspective, and, in so doing, it contributes to the spares literature on TS management from the organizers perspective.

This paper focuses on the role of manufacturer brands for resellers within retail channels. This topic is important because of the strategic value of manufacturer brands and the increasing influence of resellers within channels of distribution. Much of the branding research emphasizes a customer-brand knowledge perspective; however, emerging perspectives suggest that brands are also relevant to other stakeholders including resellers. In contrast, channels research recognizes the manufacturer sources of market power, but does not consider the impact of manufacturer “push and pull” strategies within channels. Existing theoretical frameworks, therefore, do not address the reseller perspective of the brand. As a result, the research approach is a multi-method design, consisting of two phases. The first phase involves in-depth interviews, allowing the development of a conceptual framework. In the second phase, a survey of supermarket buyers on brands in several product categories tests this framework. Structural equation modeling analyzes the survey responses and tests the hypotheses. The structural model shows very good fit to the data with good construct validity, reliability, and stability. The findings show that manufacturer support, brand equity, and customer demand reflect the manufacturer brand benefits to resellers. A key contribution of this research is the development of a validated scale on manufacturer brand benefits from the point of view of a reseller. This research shows that the resources that relate to the brand, not just the brand name itself, create value for resellers in channel relationships.

Customer service represents a significant opportunity for segmenting markets. This article reviews the importance of customer service and the conceptual issues associated with segmenting industrial markets on the basis of customer service. A methodology is presented which can be used by managers to classify a market into segments with different customer service needs. Empirical results from a high‐technology industry are also presented. The article emphasises the need to recognise the differing customer service requirements of segments of customers when establishing priorities for customer service expenditures.

This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of control mechanisms in promoting collaborative performance by exploring the moderating effects of formal institutions (government support and legal enforcement in this study) and informal ties (business ties in this study) on the relationship between control mechanisms and collaborative performance.

A conceptual model is developed with the direct effects of contractual execution and relational norms on collaborative performance and the moderating effects of government support, legal enforcement and business ties on the above relationships. Hierarchical regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses based on 393 responses from Chinese computer and computer components distributors.

The empirical results generally support the conceptual model. First, consistent with most previous studies, both contractual execution and relational norms contribute to collaborative performance. Second, government support and business ties weaken the role of contractual execution, whereas legal enforcement strengthens it. Third, business ties enhance the effects of relational norms, and, unexpectedly, government support also fosters the relationship between relational norms and collaborative performance.

First, this study solves the problem of conflicting findings on the relationship between contract and performance by examining the effect of contractual execution, rather than contract design, on collaborative performance. Second, this study contributes to institutional theory by examining the moderating role of formal institutions. Third, this study deepens the understanding of the role of business ties by exploring its moderating effect on the relationship between control mechanisms and collaborative performance.

This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework based on transaction cost economics that identifies key factors shaping public agencies’ governance of supplier relationships and related performance implications.

The paper presents an extended transaction cost framework for research on public procurement (PP) with a corresponding set of propositions. Transaction cost theory and specific features of and challenges to the PP function identified in extant literature constitute the main elements of the framework.

This conceptual paper makes three sets of proposals. First, public agencies tend to rely on market governance of supplier relationships and when PP deploys non-market governance, such governance tends to be of a unilateral (vs bilateral) kind. Second, increases in purchasing competence and autonomy of PP and particularly if implemented in tandem, will reduce PP’s overreliance on market governance and increase PP’s use of non-market governance. Third, PP should perform better for less complex transactions – and when contracting complexity relates to safeguarding of specific assets rather than when complexity relates to environmental and behavioral uncertainty. Increases in competence and autonomy should increase PP’s performance, particularly for complex transactions.

Public agencies may be in a better position to align governance solutions with transaction complexities by developing their procurement competence, decentralizing procurement decisions and increasing the flexibility of national and international procurement regulations. Private companies selling to public agencies need to be aware of and able to adapt to PP practices such as extensive use of market governance and unilateral governance as the primary form of non-market governance.

The paper discusses how public agencies can improve procurement performance through better alignment of governance of supplier relationships with transaction attributes and thereby increase the quality of public services.

The paper relies on a well-established theoretical perspective, enabling identification (and, potentially, correction) of governance misalignment in the public sector.