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The paper aims to compare the coordination of supply chain networks in contractually different complex construction projects.

A comparative case study of the coordination of collaborative work in two successful hospital construction projects was conducted. One of the projects applied multiple dyadic contracts, whereas the other project applied one multi-party contract between the parties. The projects were located in the USA. Data were collected by observing the coordination on the construction sites for six weeks and by conducting 72 interviews.

The paper shows that depending on the contract type, the timing and extent of complementary procedural coordination differs during projects. Compared with one multi-party contract, the dyadic contracts needed to be complemented during the design phase with three additional procedural coordination mechanisms: organizational design, processes for collaborative work and integrated concurrent engineering sessions. Additionally, common rules of conduct were taken into use during the construction phase. However, regardless of the contract type, procedural coordination mechanisms, such as co-located working, collaborative decision-making in inter-organizational meetings, a liaison role and shared project goals were needed throughout the projects.

If multiple dyadic contracts are applied, procedural coordination mechanisms have to be co-created by all supply chain parties at the beginning of the project.

The paper provides an understanding on successful contractual and complementary procedural coordination mechanisms of supply chain networks in complex construction projects.

This chapter addresses social embeddedness effects on ex ante management of economic transactions. We focus on dyadic embeddedness, that is the history of prior transactions between business partners and the anticipation of future transactions. Ex ante management through, for example, contractual arrangements is costly but mitigates risks associated with the transaction, such as risks from strategic and opportunistic behavior. Dyadic embeddedness can reduce such risks and, hence, the need for ex ante management by, for instance, making reciprocity and conditional cooperation feasible. The chapter presents a novel theoretical model generating dyadic embeddedness effects, together with effects of transaction characteristics and management costs. We stress the interaction of the history of prior transactions and expectations of future business. Hypotheses are tested using new and primary data from an extensive survey of more than 900 purchases of information technology (IT) products (hard- and software) by almost 800 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Results support, in particular, the hypotheses on effects of dyadic embeddedness.

Base-of-the-pyramid (BoP) markets are frequently characterized by institutional voids. However, it remains unclear how institutional voids impact corporate and supply chain risk and performance. This intersection will be analyzed in this paper.

This paper presents a systematic literature review of 94 BoP papers published between 2004 and 2019 in peer-reviewed, English-language journals available on Scopus. Drawing upon established frameworks for examining institutional voids, supply chain risks and BoP performance, frequency, and contingency analyses are conducted. Contingencies are established to provide insights into the associations between different constructs from the selected frameworks.

Supply chain risks are pervasive in the BoP discourse, especially when BoP markets are characterized by institutional voids. The frequency analysis of the constructs suggests that the key supply chain risks discussed in the BoP literature include social risk, credit risk, product market and operating uncertainties, knowledge and skill biases and decision-maker risks due to bounded rationality. The contingency analysis suggests that institutional voids are associated with supply chain risks that affect performance.

A theoretical framework aligning three research streams in the context of BoP calls for future studies to test the causality of highlighted constructs that are significantly associated. The analysis is confined to the constructs that are taken into account based on specific conceptual frameworks.

The study provides practitioners with a framework to manage supply chain risks in BoP-related firms to enhance firm performance. Managers can use key dimensions of supply chain risk, such as the product market, the input market and operating uncertainties, to evaluate performance in the BoP context.

Specifically, this research has strengthened the inquiry of supply chain risks in the presence of institutional voids that may have an impact on firm performance

This conceptual paper examines and evaluates patronage and clientage as a system of interrelated dyadic exchanges between unequals through which goods and services circulate, flowing both up and down through stratified societies. The parties involved may be in different places socially and geographically.

Data are presented for Brazil from the period of the Old Republic beginning in the 1890s, through the end of the Military Dictatorship in mid-1980s, and finally to the present, ending with today’s conditional cash transfer programs. The data are examined against the background of a 15th century book, O Livro da Virtuosa Bemfeituria (The Book of the Virtuous Benefits), written by a Portuguese Prince influential in the expansion and discoveries as a guide for princes and great lords that is used in the paper very much in the way that Adam Smith’s writings are used for most economic behavior today.

There are striking parallels over this long historical period in the behaviors referred to as patronage and clientage that may be conceptualized as an older (traditional) way of ordering the flow of goods and services (distributing them), alternative and parallel to market mechanisms that have, and continue to operate in Brazilian society.

Patronage and clientage are often-misunderstood behaviors, sometimes referred to as corrupt, that alternatively may be explained and understood as part of a still viable and operational socio-cultural system that goes back to a period before the colonization of Brazil.

To improve the understanding of the inter‐organizational dynamics of the dyadic relationships between a buyer and provider of logistics services (TPL dyads).

Analyzes the preparation, implementation, and operation of a particular case of third party logistics (TPL) arrangements. Based on a single case study of a dyadic relationship, the paper confronts the static view of the transaction cost approach and the agency theory on “governance structures” and “contracts” by showing how “relationship governance” emerges and develops over time.

TPL dyads are subject to both controllable and non‐controllable forces of change, which may not always have a positive effect on the logistics performance or the relationship itself. Inter‐organizational dynamics not only relate to learning, competence development, or adaptation, as suggested by other studies, but also to how the dyadic relationships are governed. As the dyad accumulates experience over time, changes will occur in the balance between the two parties in terms of goal congruence and risk preferences, which has a strong influence on the nature of contracts and other safeguards governing the relationship. Similarly, explanatory power of theories applicable to inter‐organizational settings may vary as relationships emerge and develop over time. Focus on core competencies as the logic of outsourcing is followed by a period characterized by a principal‐agent relationship. To ensure further prosperity of the relationship, the two companies must direct their efforts towards the logic of the network approach.

Contributes to a cross‐disciplinary fertilization of the SCM field, in particular inter‐organizational relationships.

This study aims to explore the relationship among five types of power (expert, referent, legitimate, reward and coercive power), two dimensions of cooperative behavior (specific investments and communication) and three types of alliance performance (alliance stability, income increase and cost decrease) in contract farming. By investigating the dyadic perspectives of companies and contract farmers, the authors examine how power use influences cooperative behavior, which further enhances alliance performance.

The authors construct a theoretical model grounded on resource dependence theory (RDT). Data from 202 companies and 462 farmers in China are used to test the proposed hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

The authors' results show that the five types of power play different roles in cooperative behavior. On the one hand, farmers' expert, reward and coercive power enhance the company's specific investments; farmers' expert power enhances the company's communication but farmers' coercive power harms the company's communication. Also the company's specific investments enhance communication that is positively related to alliance ability, income increase and cost decrease. On the other hand, the company's expert, referent and legitimate power enhance farmers' communication, while the company's coercive power harms farmers' communication; the company's reward and coercive power enhance farmers' specific investments. Moreover, farmers' communication is positively related to alliance ability, income increase and cost decrease, but farmers' specific investments do not significantly influence such.

This study contributes to the literature on contract farming supply chain management by examining the relationships among power use, cooperative behavior and alliance performance from the dyadic perspective of companies and farmers. These findings have practical implications for agricultural companies and farmers promoting cooperative behavior and alliance performance through appropriate power use in contract farming supply chains.

The second decade of the twenty-first century finds Brazil racked by a series of scandals that are extreme even by world standards. This chapter presents an explanation for one of the behaviors that have produced these scandals. Specifically, it is the offering of bribes to public officials by individuals or companies that stand to benefit from contracts to perform public services and, furthermore, the paying of kickbacks to the officials if the contract is awarded. I liken this behavior to the making of vows to the saints in the “popular” or “folk” form of Catholicism – and other popular religions that accept its basic premises – and the fulfillment of the promise if and when the otherworldly being provides what the petitioner requested. Part 1 of the chapter examines an election for mayor of the city of Fortaleza in 2012 in which the office was “bought” for what seemed to be an exorbitant amount of money. I hypothesize that this is to be explained by the anticipation of the city receiving government contracts to build a soccer stadium, a rail system, and other projects related to the 2014 World Cup. In Part 2, I examine Brazil’s religions beginning with popular Catholicism, to show that the normative way of gaining something desired from a supernatural – be it the restoration of health or the recovery of a lost item – is to offer it something it values and then fulfilling the promise if and when the petitioner receives what was requested. I contend that this important religious pattern continues to provide the template for the secular behavior that is being judged to be corrupt by standards other than those found in the religiously based worldview of many Brazilians.

This study aims to examine the impact of supplier relationship quality on curtailing opportunism and promoting cooperation between the exchange partners. It also investigates the contingent impact of contract specificity on the relationships and assesses performance implications of relationship quality for both buyer and its major supplier in the exchange.

Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis were performed based on data collected from manufacturers in a survey. The hypotheses were tested using path analysis.

The findings of this study indicate a pivotal role of supplier relationship quality in suppressing opportunism and enhancing cooperation between exchange parties, which lead to dyadic performance. Furthermore, the effect of supplier relationship quality is strengthened by contract specificity.

This study adds value to the existing streams of studies in several ways. First, informed by the nexus of relational capital theory and transaction cost economics, the authors emphasize the pivotal role of relationship quality in curtailing opportunism and fostering cooperation and the moderating effect of contract specificity on the above linkages. Second, this study provides empirical evidence of the mechanism of the effect of contract specificity on opportunism and cooperation.

The evolution of the business-to-business (BtoB) realm toward solution business calls for a better understanding of how relationships develop over time in such a renewed context. This paper aims to propose a phase model for solution relationship development, considering triadic relationships in complex engineering solutions.

To depict how relationships develop in solution business, the authors adopt a qualitative approach which allows to detail the episodes of interactions between the actors. A case study approach in an extreme sector – the aerospace industry – allows highlighting certain key traits. Extending conventional dyadic analysis, this empirical study focuses on the aerospace industry, using a case study approach to analyze relationship developments between a worldwide leading aircraft manufacturer, one of its customer and four providers of products and services. The authors adopt a triadic perspective in the selection of cases, considering a total of four manufacturer-provider-customer triads.

Four dynamic phases which track solution provision dynamics and involving dyadic and triadic relationship evolution are identified: matching; combining; mixing; and sharing. Each phase calls, from a management perspective, for specific competencies and resources of the actors in interaction.

This paper contributes to the gap about solution relationship development in a changing BtoB landscape. Considering the lens of a triadic approach, the paper also helps to fill the as-yet unattended to gap between dyads and triads in the literature.

The paper is the story of the marginalization of the concept of networks of dyadic exchanges or patronage and clientage by Brazilian intellectuals and Brazilianist academics. I contend that though it is a pervasive pattern in the culture of the nation, Brazilian intellectuals wrote about patronage/clientage as an aspect of politics that is responsible for the country's backwardness and underdevelopment. Anthropologists, for the most part, judged it to be exploitative of the people involved and believed that it should be eliminated. The Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores or PT), as it implemented a highly commended conditional cash transfer program to help the poor, attempted to replace it with an alternative way they believed electoral politics ought to be conducted. I suggest that the pattern continues to be more than exchanges between political office seekers and voters in Brazil as it transcends the political, economic, and religious categories of modernity and may provide the most needy with what the labor market does not.