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While the literature on multitier supply chain management traditionally assumes that first-tier suppliers belong to the visible proportion of the supply base, intermediaries might limit focal firms' visible horizon already at this stage. High power asymmetries promoting centrality and complexity in the supply network are seen as a particular root cause that limits the impact of governance mechanisms for sustainability. To map the space for governance mechanisms in a network-sensitive context more comprehensively, the study analyzes supply network characteristics from a power perspective.

This research is conceptual. To better understand power imbalances and mutual dependencies from network centrality and complexity, network configurations were constructed drawing on resource dependence theory. These configurations allow deducing the impact of (non-)mediated governance mechanisms for a sustainable development in the supply network. An agenda to stimulate future empirical and model-based research is accordingly presented.

The research shows that those networks with densely interconnected first-tier suppliers promote network centrality and complexity, leading to an inverted U-shape relationship between the focal firm's exertion of coercive power and the sustainability performance in the supply network. The findings allow a more comprehensive theoretical grounding for mapping governance approaches in a network-sensitive context and provide insights on how to avoid negative effects from power asymmetries.

The findings suggest the need for accompanying, indirect governance mechanisms already at the stage of first-tier suppliers based on non-mediated forms of power, such as referent power, also promoting disintermediation. Purchasing companies may also consider using digital platform technologies that foster disintermediation, such as blockchain technology.

By studying intermediaries from a power and network perspective, the conceptualization adds to the discussion on governance in multitier sustainable supply chain networks in various industries. Furthermore, it contributes to the increasing efforts of middle-range theorizing in logistics and supply chain management. The results partially challenge previous assumptions on the moderating role of specific network characteristics.

The purpose of the article is to explore the perceptions of Brazilian game developers about the power relations between them and the sponsors of digital game platforms. It also aims to identify forms of collective action that developers can use to counteract the asymmetry of power.

The research employed an abductive approach, seeking empirical evidence that would challenge consolidated theory. To achieve this, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 Brazilian developers. The data were analyzed qualitatively using NVivo software. The aim was to resolve theoretical ambiguities identified in the literature review and to explore unexpected findings.

The study explores Brazilian game developers' perceptions through interviews, revealing their experiences within the industry’s concentrated structure and their use of collective action to navigate power dynamics.

The study's focus on Brazil limits the generalizability of its findings to the broader game development industry.

The study suggests Brazilian game devs can leverage collective action to counteract power imbalance with platforms, collaborate through events and projects and facilitate internationalization of their games.

The study suggests collective action could empower developers to challenge platform dominance and foster a stronger community among Brazilian game developers.

The article’s value lies in examining Brazilian devs' experiences within their specific industry context and highlighting collective action as a potential strategy for developers.

I aimed to develop a conceptual model of power dynamics focused on an anticipated power consequences in business relationships in a context of high environmental turbulence. I also intended to discuss the theoretical significance of my findings and indicate future research directions.

Conceptual article indicating future research directions.

The proposal of the conceptual model of power dynamics focusing on anticipated power consequences in business relationships.

The limitations of the presented model stem from the critique of the holistic view. My contribution lies in advancing our understanding of power dynamics in business relationships amid significant environmental change. I elucidate how transformative practices relate to power outcomes and value creation in these relationships.

The model highlights the importance of a mindful approach to managing business relationships in a turbulent environment. It emphasizes considering expected power outcomes from activities and their impact on creating value in these relationships.

The proposed concept resonates with systems theory, which emphasizes how different levels of business relationships are interconnected. It enables the analysis of power dynamics at the individual level, such as employees, consumers and local communities. These groups often include the most vulnerable individuals impacted by relational business structures.

The focus on anticipated power consequences of transformative practices triggered by high environmental turbulences, while considering the impact of power distribution of relationship actors on the sharing of benefits and costs.

Sustainability approaches across product supply chains are well-known, while similar knowledge on transport supply chains (TSC) is limited. The purpose of this paper is to explore sustainability approaches and managerial challenges in extending sustainability across a TSC.

This paper presents a case study of a TSC with a shipper, a third-party logistics firm and a hauler. Each actor’s views on sustainability-related communication and relations with other TSC actors are analyzed through the lens of agency theory.

Each dyad in the TSC reveals different, more or less collaboration-based approaches. Challenges are revealed, including the lack of shipper understanding for the TSC context and the use of immature contracts, which disincentivizes sustainability compliance. The multi-tier study object reveals the silencing of distant actors and the need for actors to take on mediating roles to bridge information asymmetries.

Combining literature perspectives (relations, communication and agency theory) provides a deeper understanding of the approaches applied and identifies different challenges. The inclusion of agency theory reveals principal problems such as information asymmetries between agents and less-informed principals and suggests complementary labels of supply chain actors.

Practical contributions include the highlighting of managerial challenges, which can aid managers in extending sustainability across TCSs.

The case study method offers insights into collaboratively improving sustainability in supply chains (such as using contracts), thus having social and environmental implications.

The paper narrows knowledge gaps about managing sustainability among logistics service providers and analyzes data from multi-tier actors.

In this paper, the authors integrate the psychological ownership theory with the concept of commitment to contribute to the discussion on agricultural supply chain management. The purpose of this study is to examine how farmers experience their commitment to the business relationship with the processor and how this is conveyed through the routes of psychological ownership.

The empirical data are based on 14 in-depth face-to-face Finnish farmer interviews. To understand the farmers’ routes to psychological ownership, the critical incidents technique was used.

According to the three routes to psychological ownership – control, profound knowledge and self-investment – the authors argue that farmers mainly consider their routes to be more or less blocked because of the asymmetrical power and information distribution in the business relationship with the processor. Furthermore, based on farmers’ perceptions of psychological ownership, the authors provide a farmer typology that reflects in the farmers’ willingness to commit to the business relationship. The identified types are named as satisfied, captives and leavers.

By integrating the theory of psychological ownership with the concept of commitment, this study provides a more robust understanding of how farmers experience their commitment to the business relationship, thus, contributing to the literature on supply chain management in the agri-food business context. Implementation of these findings can help business partners to proactively improve their business relationships through the perceived level of commitment and to deal with critical incidents influencing the effectiveness of the whole chain.

For a long time, researchers have stressed the importance of identity for collaborative supply relationships. Accordingly, it has been proposed that supply relationships may be efficiently managed by establishing a shared collective identity among partners. However, this strategy may challenge the partners' individual distinctiveness and thus lead to adversarial relationship outcomes. In this article, it is argued how and when establishing an intergroup relational identity may be a better choice than building a collective identity.

The conceptual research is based on an analysis of previous literature. Relational identity theorizing and the theory of intergroup leadership are applied to build on and extend previous views on identity in interorganizational contexts.

It is proposed that when supply chain actors are subject to identity threats in collaborative supply relationships, such threats are driven by the imbalance of power between or among the parties. Therefore, establishing an intergroup relational identity should be preferred over a collective identity in situations characterized by a high identity threat.

Future studies could support this article's theoretical suggestions with empirical evidence.

Intergroup relational identity preserves the distinctiveness of all parties involved in a collaborative relationship and is based on their individual contributions. Managers could support a collaborative environment and promote a shared vision between or among organizations through appropriate rhetoric.

This study contributes to an understanding of the relational aspects of interorganizational behavior by adapting social psychological theories to this area of research.

Effective and flexible organizational models have become an avenue for driving smallholder competitiveness in the agricultural sector. However, little is understood about the processes by which resource-constrained actors deploy their organizational networks to generate and retain value in rapidly changing agrifood environments. This study examines the moderating effects of business contingencies on the interplay between organizational relationships and the resource-based performance of small-scale farmers in a developing country.

The authors propose a novel conceptual framework grounded in the relational view, netchain and contingency theories. Cross-sectional data obtained from 330 maize farmers in rural Zambia were analyzed using variance-based structural equation modeling, which involves mediation-moderation analysis.

The results show that all relational networks – vertical, horizontal and lateral – positively mediate the effects farm resources and social capital have on farmers' performance. However, these effects change depending on the predominant agency situations. Specifically, asymmetric power from customers and reputable competitors weakens the positive effect of closer horizontal relationships on business performance, while the positive effect of tighter informal vertical relationships on farmers' performance weakens under conditions of high affective trust. Moreover, the gender-based multigroup analyses highlight variations in the contingent relational view of men- and women-headed households.

The study relies on cross-sectional data from one agribusiness sector in Zambia, thus generalizations should be cautious.

The uniqueness of this study lies in the proposed theoretical framework and new empirical insights, which extend the scope of the relational view to small-scale farming households in developing countries.

In the context of debates on the role of social partners in shaping anti-crisis policies, the article explores the developments of social dialogue in Poland following the outbreak of the pandemic. The central research question is whether the crisis has helped to revitalise social dialogue or has it further revealed its weaknesses that were apparent before it.

The paper is based on the combination of literature review and the analysis of primary data derived from 22 expert interviews with the representatives of trade unions, employers and ministries collected in 2020–2021 in four essential industries (education, health care, social care and logistics).

The analysis suggests that the pandemic led to reinforcement of “illusory corporatism” in Poland, deepened mistrust among social partners and triggered a shift to informal channels of influencing policymaking. The weakness of the social partners and the strong position of the right-wing populist government meant that fears of recession and a health crisis were insufficient to develop “crisis” corporatism. While business interests were represented better than labour in policymaking, limited labour-friendly outcomes have been achieved as a result of workers’ mobilisation and unilateral decisions of the government rather than tripartite social dialogue.

Based on original empirical research, the article contributes to the discussion on the impact of the crisis on social dialogue under patchwork capitalism. It points to the role of strong governments and informality in circumventing tripartite structures and the importance of essential workers’ mobilisation in response to the lack of social dialogue.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key drivers and challenges to supply chain collaboration in the humanitarian sector; to appraise the relationships between international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and local non-governmental organizations (LNGOs) during disaster relief; and to explore the humanitarian context in regard to supply chain collaboration.

Literature from both the commercial and humanitarian sectors is discussed in the context of vertical partnerships. A Jordanian study spanning a network of 26 international and LNGOs is explored via semi-structured interviews.

The research provides valuable insights on the challenges facing LNGOs and INGOs when developing partnerships. Contextual factors, including host governmental policies and the social-economic setting of a disaster directly affect the motivations for supply chain collaboration between LNGOs and INGOs.

The research is built on interviewees with 30 humanitarian professionals working in one country during an extended crisis. The majority of the empirical data are only from one actor’s perspective, thus further research into dyadic and network relationships is required. Approaches to addressing the diverse cultural and decision-making perspectives of LNGOs and INGOs warrant further investigation.

Recognizing the motives and challenges to vertical partnerships between LNGOs and INGOs will assist the managers, both at the strategic and operational levels, to find solutions and evolve strategies to build effective partnerships. Compromise and consideration for partner’s drivers and cultural views are essential for effective joint humanitarian relief initiatives.

This paper extends supply chain collaboration to a humanitarian context. Overcoming the challenges facing collaborative efforts and complementary nature of the drivers provide a means to achieve effective partnerships. Despite the uniqueness of the humanitarian context, such as the secondary nature of cost and dynamic demand, the core principles of collaboration still hold.

Research suggests that centers of calculation, empowered by accounting inscriptions, are similar to maps: they provide a useful, albeit simplified, version of reality. The purposes of this paper are to examine whether and how digital platforms change the nature of centers of calculation, and to improve the understanding of the relationship between digital platforms and accounting.

An in-depth, single case-study design is used to empirically investigate how a Nordic hotel chain competed with global online travel agencies (OTAs) in the quest for the “new oil”—customer data.

The paper demonstrates how the case organization created a local alternative to global digital platforms with the aim of acquiring customer data, thereby moving from a center of calculation (CoC) to what authors label a “center of data appropriation” (CDA). While CoCs are guided by accounting inscriptions that enable “mapping”, CDAs are constructed around accounting inscriptions with other properties that enable digital “mirrors” of the economic domain. The authors find that this has two governing effects. First, multiple centers emerge that compete for access to the periphery. Second, future forms of competition can follow dynamic trajectories, where mutual dependence between CDAs may lead to coopetition.

Scholars have suggested that surveillance capitalism creates market-power imbalances. This study indicates that the transformation of local organizations into CDAs enables them to challenge global digital-platform organizations. Therefore, authors argue that local organizations may retain some market power by establishing local CDAs.