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This study aimed to develop and empirically test a structural equation model for investigating risk factors associated with outsourcing of facilities management (FM) services and its impact on firm performance (FP).

Using data derived from an earlier study, a conceptual model was hypothesized and empirically tested to clarify causal relationships between risk variables and how they influence FP.

Supported by empirical evidence, the study established that only vendor risk variables have marginal impact on FP. There were however significant positive relationship between vendor risks factors and relationship risk factors, client based factors (CBF) and relationship risk factors, client based risks and vendor related risks, and contract risks factors and relationship risk.

The final structural equation model has revealed key risk components that would require standard mitigation measures in order to achieve outsourcing success in the FM sector. It is a sector that is thriving in Nigeria and requires every effort to make it an international recognised market.

This paper provides a greater understanding of the interactions between key elements of outsourcing risks associated with FM provision as well as the degree of relationship between them.

The relationship between airports and airlines is very interesting from an economics perspective, and analysis of this relationship is wide open for new research endeavors. For instance, airport and airline interactions can be viewed as a zero-sum game of deciding, say, airport landing charges, while at the same time both entities have an incentive making a joint effort to enhance their ability to generate passenger demand and to contribute to growing regional economies. Within this theoretical framework, their relationship consists of not only a binary choice of conflict or cooperation, but also suggests the possibility of complex mixtures of conflict and cooperation. While understanding the interdependence of airports and airlines is an important issue in transportation economics, research examining the complexity of airport and airline relationships is relatively new to the field. This chapter contributes to this research area, in part, by introducing one very interesting example of an airport and airline relationship that considers an element of conflict and cooperation. Specifically, this chapter examines the economic consequences of a risk sharing contract. Analysis of the risk sharing contract recognizes the relevance of microeconomic theories, such as contract theory and principal–agent theory and reveals how these concepts can be applied to traditional transport economics. Predictions of risk sharing between airlines and airports using these theories are derived using numerical examples. Findings reveal that the risk-sharing agreement based on the Noto Airport Load Factor Guarantee Mechanism (LFGM) contract enables the airport side and the airline side not only to share the monetary consequences of demand fluctuation, but also to secure air flights from a local airport to Tokyo, to jointly enhance their various demand-inducing efforts, and to increase their utilities in order to meet the common target they set in the contract. With the LFGM contract, both sides have consistently maintained the air transport network in a relatively low demand area for more than 10 years without significant outside financial assistance. The findings from this chapter also contribute to better understanding the complex relationships among aviation entities, to the recognition of importance and potential to design properly the airport and airline contract, and to the advancement of economic and public policy analysis of this sector.

The study aims to explore the role of reliance and brand image (goods-based and service-based) in risk perceptions related to business-to-business (B2B) purchases. In particular, time risk (TR), performance risk (PR) and financial risk (FR) has been explored in this paper.

A questionnaire-based survey data has been collected from 152 respondents from different industries, and the model was validated using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The study highlights the importance of reliance and brand image for reducing the effects of perceived risk. While reliance is negatively related to all the risk dimensions, the relationship between reliance and FR is serially mediated by service-based brand image (SBBI) and TR. The same is also mediated by PR. Furthermore, PR and TR are positively related to FR.

The findings of this study highlight the importance of reliance and brand image for reducing the effects of risk dimensions. Reliance plays an important role in reducing all risk perceptions. Findings also highlight the importance of SBBI in reducing TR.

The findings provide managers with key insights for reducing risk perceptions by creating a strong reliance and B2B brand image, leading to long-term relationship strategies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few papers in B2B marketing that focuses on the importance of reliance and brand image in reducing the effects of perceived risk.

This paper seeks to identify the up‐stream supply chain member's (manufacturers, suppliers, supplier's service providers) characteristics, economics, dynamic capabilities, technology and institutional perspectives of risk in relationship to develop a trust building model through risk evaluation and to address the issue: should a supply chain member strive to build the trust or strive to reduce the risk with its members and from which perspectives?

A conceptual framework was developed considering five key perspectives (characteristics, economics, dynamic capabilities, technology and institutions) to evaluate the member's risk in relationship and derived the hypothesis from the framework. A survey was conducted in UAE packaged food industry upstream supply chain covering senior managers of 102 companies. Data were analysed using multiple regression analyses through SPSS. The selected supply chain members of this industry include packaged food products companies as manufacturers, packaging material converters as suppliers of packaging material to manufacturers and packaging raw material suppliers as supplier's suppliers of manufacturer.

From the survey results it is found that characteristic and institutional risk perspectives influence significantly to initiate a trustworthy relationship. Economics, dynamic capabilities and technology risk perspectives play a significant role to maintain trust in relationship. No perspective of members is found to be significantly risk‐free.

This study has identified the perspectives of risk that can initiate and build trust between supply chain members in the context of a global business environment with a strong institutional system. Further research is required to identify the supply chain member's risk‐worthy characteristics, threshold levels of risk bearing capacity and the extent to which the institutions can reduce the membership risk to build trust.

The study results suggest that the supply chain members should strive to reduce the membership risk levels to build trust rather than striving to build trust to reduce the risk. As long as a member's risk levels are within their bearable limits trust can be considered as a risk coping mechanism and when the risk levels exceed their bearable limits the subject of trust turns into risk management/security management.

This study may be one of the first to develop a trust building model through a risk evaluation process and also one of the first to study the trust in supply chain member's relationship in UAE. Findings from this research should prove useful to management researchers and practitioners.

The current study aims to systematically review the existing literature, identify the main determinants that impact individuals’ perceptions, attitude, intention and behavior and meta-analytically evaluate their respective strength. Moreover, this study examines the specific mechanism through which more distal factors, such as trust, risk, experience and enjoyment influence individuals’ decision in the context of online auction markets. Finally, the moderating effects of contextual and methodological factors that could potentially influence the relationships are explored. During the past two decades, a large number of empirical studies examined the factors that hinder or foster individuals’ initial and continued acceptance of online auction marketplaces.

Based on the effect sizes reported, 91 studies, including 95 independent samples (N = 36.788), the current study utilizes bivariate meta-analysis, meta-analytic structural equation modeling and weighted least squares regression moderator analysis to examine the nature of the identified relationships, the mechanisms through which they operate and the boundary conditions under which they do or do not hold.

The results show that trust and experience explain individuals’ initial usage intention, while risk and experience explain actual usage behavior, indicating that these variables are viable extensions to the technology acceptance model in the context of online auction marketplaces. The results also demonstrate that, once individuals participate in online auction markets, trust and enjoyment are important predictors of satisfaction, which, in turn, is the strongest determinant of loyalty intention. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that cultural context acts as moderator and, to some degree, explains the mixed empirical findings in prior research.

This study contributes to the existing literature by identifying the main determinants and their average direct and indirect effect on the individuals’ decisions in online auction marketplaces. The findings provide critical insights into the complex network of relationships which impact individuals’ perceptions, attitude, intention and behavior to initially and continuously use online auction marketplaces. Furthermore, the result contributes to the existing research by examining the effect of contextual and methodological boundary conditions – moderating factors that are difficult to test in primary studies.

This paper aims to examine the impact of executive compensation on firm risk-taking behavior, measured by the volatility of stock price returns. Specifically, this analysis explores three hypotheses. First, the impact of short-term and long-term executive compensation packages on firm risk is analyzed to assess whether the packages incentivize risk-taking behavior. Second, the authors test how these compensation and risk relationships were impacted by the financial crisis. Third, they expand the analysis to see if the relationship varies across different industries.

The econometric approach used to examine the executive compensation and firm risk relationship takes the form of two different panel model specifications. The first model is a pooled model using the panel data of executive compensation, the firm-level control variables and volatility of stock market returns. The second model highlights the differences in the relationship between executive compensation and riskiness of firm behavior across industries.

The authors find a significant and robust relationship, showing that during the post-financial crisis period firms tended to use long-term compensation shares to reduce firm risk. They also find that the relationship between various compensation components and firm risk varies across industries. Specifically, the bonus share of compensation negatively impacted firm risk in the financial services industry, while it positively impacted risk in the transportation, communication, gas, electric and services sectors. Additionally, long-term compensation share exhibits an inverse relationship with firm risk in the financial services, manufacturing and trade industries.

The conclusions of this paper suggest that there is indeed a relationship between executive compensation and firm risk across industries. There was a notable change in the relationship however between firm risk and long-term compensation following the financial crisis, where firms used long-term compensation to reduce firm riskiness. In other words, the financial crisis changed the nature of this relationship across S&P 1500 firms. The last key finding is that there exist differences in risk and compensation relationships across industries, and these differences across industries are highlighted across both bonus share and long-term incentive share variables. This is the first study to explore this relationship across industries.

Although risks and client‐vendor relationships in IT outsourcing have been studied in prior research, there is a paucity of studies providing insights on the mitigation of client risks through the relationship. This research aims to focus on mitigation of the ex post risks of firms engaged in offshore software development (OSD). Client risks due to service provider behavior are identified first. Further, this work seeks to identify relationship variables that could reduce the impact of determinants of risk on a risk category.

This research followed a multiple case study method aiming to build insights and directions that would facilitate further research. The paper's goal of sampling was to choose cases which were likely to extend the emergent theory pertaining to risks and their mitigation through relationships.

Findings from this study show that shirking, loss of control over information assets, and service provider lock‐in are the three categories of ex post risks. A relationship management strategy ensuring reasonable profits to the vendor could mitigate shirking risk. Trustworthiness of vendors established through credibility and benevolence in prior engagements could mitigate the risk of loss of control over information assets. Further, dependence balancing through a multi‐vendor offshoring strategy and joint investments in relationship‐specific assets could mitigate the risk of service provider lock‐in.

The findings from this research provide useful insights in vendor selection and management process.

This paper adds to the growing body of literature in offshore IT outsourcing and makes two significant contributions: identification and categorization of risks due to vendor behavior and their determinants in OSD; and understanding the role of relationship dimension in mitigating such risks in OSD.

Executives exert a pervasive influence on the organizations they lead. As such, scholars have long considered how to calibrate the risks inherent in executive decision making, often relying on incentives and compensation to calibrate executive risk behavior. However, there are shortcomings that reduce the efficacy of this approach, largely because incentives and compensation do not alter the work environment itself, which play a significant role influencing executive risk behavior. Consequently, in this chapter, we propose a conceptualization that integrates executive risk-taking with work design, framing three central features of the strategic leader job and work environment that may be manipulated to channel and shape executive risk-taking. Specifically, accountability, discretion, and relationships are proposed as the key higher-order characteristics of the executive work context, and they are examined with respect to optimal calibration in order to maximize both executive performance and well-being, as well as organizational coordination and control. Implications of this conceptualization and directions for future research are discussed.

Although crowdsourcing has gained significant attention and is being used by numerous companies to develop new products and solve practical issues, the performance of crowdsourcing is not optimistic. The purpose of this paper is to develop a validated risk profile of crowdsourcing and investigate the relationships among different types of risks and those between risks and performance in crowdsourcing.

Based on the quantitative data collected from 136 crowdsourcing participants in China, two dimensions (i.e. social system and technical system risks) and five sub-dimensions (i.e. crowdsourcer, relationship, crowdsourcee, complexity, and requirement) of crowdsourcing risks are developed and validated. A theoretical model that integrates crowdsourcing risks and performance is developed. The technique of partial least squares is employed to assess the measurement model and test the hypotheses.

The empirical evidence determines the positive association of social system risks with technical system risks, which in turn negatively affect crowdsourcing performance. Specifically, relationship risk is positively affected by crowdsourcer and crowdsourcee risks, and these risks positively affect requirement and complexity risks. However, requirement and complexity risks negatively affect crowdsourcing performance.

This study explores the interrelationship between various risks and the relationship between risk and performance in the context of crowdsourcing by integrating risk-based view with socio-technical theory. Systematic but different risk mitigation strategies should be designed in crowdsourcing to manage risks and enhance performance.

Intangibility has long been studied in marketing, especially its physical aspect. This paper seeks to verify whether a branding strategy is efficient in reducing the risk perceived by customers.

A sample of university students answered the measurements considering both perspectives (brands and product categories). The paper uses a three‐dimensional approach of intangibility and explores its relationships with evaluation difficulty (ED) and perceived risk (PR). These relationships were tested in two different perspectives: brands and product categories.

Two analyses were made to test the hypotheses which were generally supported. Several relationships between the variables were found, but three should be highlighted. First, it was shown that brands are more mentally intangible than product categories, which may lead to a difficulty to evaluate. Second, it was found that evaluation difficulty increases the perceived risk in the product category perspective. Third, it was found that higher involvement generates a stronger relationship between evaluation difficulty and perceived risk for the product category perspective.

Theoretical and managerial implications to the literature are discussed along with examples of how managers could use the findings.

The research incorporates prior knowledge and involvement as moderating variables of the proposed framework and reinforces their relevance to the field. The results not only show the importance of branding, but also support the argument of considering evaluation difficulty in future research.