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The purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding of how relational embeddedness offers marketing channel partners both benefits and hazards. The nonlinear effect of relational embeddedness on channel opportunism is investigated. Influence strategies (i.e. coercive and noncoercive influence) are also examined as mediators of this nonlinear effect.

Survey data are gathered from a sample of 149 manufacturers in China. The hypotheses are tested through regression analysis.

The results support the hypothesis that relational embeddedness has a U-shaped effect on opportunism, and that this relationship can be mediated through noncoercive influence strategies. The results also indicate that coercive influence has an inverted U-shaped effect and noncoercive influence has a U-shaped effect on opportunism.

This research serves as a launching point for further investigations into the “black box” of the double-edged effects of relational embeddedness. Other channel behavior constructs can be explored in future studies.

Firms should be aware of the benefits and pitfalls associated with relational embeddedness in marketing channels. They should be alert to using influence strategies when managing channel opportunism.

This study addresses the dilemma of embeddedness in marketing channel relationships and reveals its causes and mechanisms by exploring the mediating effects of influence strategies.

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.

This study aims to examine the means by which influence strategies and social mechanisms (trust and shared vision) influence the flexibility of suppliers, and its ultimate effect on the performance of manufacturers.

This study bases the major components of marketing research on previous studies related to influence strategies and flexibility in the supply‐chain. This empirical study utilized 162 SMIT survey samples.

Results show that using coercive influence strategies and developing a shared vision promote supplier flexibility and fully mediate the effects of trust on supplier flexibility. In addition, supplier flexibility has a significant positive impact on the performance of manufacturers.

The perceptions of manufacturers regarding influence strategies and social mechanisms formed the basis of this study. Future studies could focus on the reciprocal strategies of suppliers, and the influence of these actions on the effectiveness of the influence strategies employed by manufacturers.

This paper adds to the existing management guidelines addressing the problem of ensuring increased flexibility from suppliers to enable a more rapid response to the demands of customers to enhance performance.

The paper provides novel insights into the impact of influence strategies and social mechanisms on the flexibility of suppliers.

The purpose of this case study was to explore senior librarians’ perceptions of successful leadership skills in the 21st century. The data gathered from 10 senior library leaders consisted of demographic information and responses to six open-ended interview questions. From the NVivo 10 analysis, several significant themes emerged regarding successful library leadership skills in the 21st century at two levels: foundational and interpersonal. At the foundational level, technical and knowledge skills form the building blocks for the next level of interpersonal skills. Persuasion and collaborative skills are interwoven with these interpersonal skills, both of which are at the core of the postindustrial paradigm of leadership. These two levels of skills, with an emphasis on persuasion skills, should form the basis of succession planning programs for next generation librarians. Implementing such programs could lead to increased leadership diversity, greater job satisfaction, improved job performance and effectiveness, all of which help retain librarians and ease staff shortages. Further studies are recommended.

Previous studies have investigated the influence strategy–economic satisfaction links within a pairwise framework. This study aims to reexamine this issue in a network context from both the structural and relational embeddedness perspectives.

An ego network approach in which the network consists of a focal distributor, other distributors and alternate manufacturers is adopted to measure the distributor’s network. Drawing on data from 124 distributors from China’s tire industry, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses.

The empirical results find a positive relationship between a manufacturer’s noncoercive influence strategies and the distributor’s economic satisfaction and an inverse U-shaped relationship between coercive influence strategies and economic satisfaction. It discusses the joint effects of coercive and noncoercive influence strategies and finds that the former mitigate the positive effects of the latter and that the latter flatten the inverse-U shaped effect of the former. Further, when a distributor spans rich structural holes, the effects of coercive and noncoercive influence strategies on economic satisfaction weaken. When a distributor has strong ties with its network members, the effects of noncoercive influence strategies are mitigated, while the effects of coercive influence strategies are enhanced.

This study provides implications for manufacturers, particularly concerning how to properly exert influence strategies to improve distributors’ economic satisfaction. Manufacturers should consider the attributes of the networks in which the distributors are embedded, involving structural holes and tie strength. They should also carefully use the two influence strategies simultaneously.

This study contributes to the influence strategy literature by incorporating a network perspective by empirically examining the different moderating effects of structural holes and tie strength; provides a new and powerful explanation for the effects that coercive influence strategies have on economic satisfaction by testing an inverse U-shaped effect; and examines the effects of the interaction of two strategies.

In contrast to many studies that were conducted in a Western context, this study seeks to extend the understanding and empirical findings on power, dependence, and interfirm influence strategies by examining these issues within a channel of distribution in Singapore. Research hypotheses are developed, centering on the relationship between a manufacturer’s power and its use of coercive and noncoercive influence strategies as well as the reciprocal use of coercive and noncoercive influence strategies in the channel dyad. Data from a field study of personal computer dealers are used in testing the research hypotheses. In contrast to most previous studies, a multiple‐item measure of influence strategies is used. Among the findings is that a manufacturer in this channel setting tends to use both coercive and noncoercive influence strategies in influencing its dealers.

Distinguishes empirically between the power that the manufacturer‐employee salesperson possesses in relation to the manufacturer itself in a channel containing an industrial distributor. Finds support for the belief that, compared with the manufacturer, the manufacturer’s salesperson has as much, if not more, influence on the distributor. Also examines the possible effects of a manufacturer salesperson’s specific power bases on the distributor’s perception of salesperson power and on distributor satisfaction.

This study tests the psychometric properties of alternative power measures ‐ which are grounded in the US research ‐ in Saudi Arabia and investigates if the power‐conflict and power‐satisfaction relationships purported to exist in US channels hold true in Saudi Arabia. The study results raise some questions on the applicability of American measures in a different setting. Likewise, the study′s findings concerning relationships between power and satisfaction and power and conflict are mixed. For instance, neither coercive nor noncoercive power sources are significantly related to conflict. This suggests that manufacturers cannot indiscriminately apply conflict management strategies that they commonly employ in domestic settings to minimize or resolve conflict in their international operations.

Power is one of the single most critical concepts for understanding industrial relations management. Yet, despite having been subject to much scholarly attention, existing research often implicitly assumes an organizational level of behavior or examines influence tactics within the confines of an individual-level dyad. This has led to a limited understanding of influence exercises involving a third person. Motivated to advance the understanding of this phenomenon, this study aims to explore how boundary spanners from a buying organization influence supplier representatives by involving a third person.

This study uses a longitudinal single case study design grounded in social control theory. Data consist of interviews, observations and documents collected over a period of 27 months in a global sourcing context.

The findings demonstrate how the influence agent from the buying organization can invoke a third person’s mediated and nonmediated social power base through either direct or indirect social control mechanisms. With these findings, this paper makes a novel theoretical contribution by developing a deeper understanding of underexposed social influence tactics unfolding in individual-level triads.

This study offers boundary spanning managers with practical insights into subtle and indirect forms of social influence with which they can influence external exchange partners.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to draw on social control theory to examine interpersonal influence tactics in buyer-supplier relationships. By integrating this theoretical perspective with extant research on social power, this study emphasizes the importance of considering how the influence agent mobilizes a third person’s social influence base.

This paper seeks to describe supplier coordination of sales and marketing activities to manage customer relationships.

Six propositions are suggested that examine the drivers dictating how customers initiate influence tactics for their benefit in dealing with their suppliers.

Illustrations are provided to show how and when the marketing and sales functions come close to synergistic efforts and what hinders them from doing so.

Although influence tactics have a rich history in social psychology and organizational behavior research, more influence tactics must be tested using various samples and multiple methods in the customer‐supplier realm of selling and marketing activities.

Understanding trust, commitment, and cooperation from the supplier's perspective, enhances one's ability to understand why the sales and marketing functions must work together to program a defense mechanism against customers that are initiating influence tactics against them.

The study presents useful information for the coordination of sales and marketing activities.