The impact of formal control and guanxi on task conflict in outsourcing relationships in China

The varying roles of governance mechanisms on ex-post transaction costs and relationship commitment in buyer-supplier relationships

“…Recent studies have emphasized the governance structure that develops relationship performance (Liu et al, 2017a;Luo et al, 2015), credibility and quantity of knowledge transfer (Liu et al, 2017b), relational satisfaction (Yang et al, 2016;Gorton et al, 2015) while minimizing conflicts (Lee et al, 2017;Yang et al, 2017) and opportunism (Luo et al, 2015;Liu et al, 2009). In particular, we advance the research in following ways.…”

“…complementarity and substitution between relationship governance mechanisms. The complementarity view suggests that transactional and relational mechanisms function as complements (Luo, 2002;Poppo & Zenger, 2002;Liu et al, 2009;Lee et al, 2017). However, the other view holds that, due to the varying nature of both transactional and relational mechanisms, joint adoption is less effective at governing inter-firm relationships (Wuyts & Geyskens, 2005;Li et al, 2010).…”

“…Despite the convincing opinions for viewing sociological governance and contract completeness as substitutes, the rationale for viewing sociological governance and symmetric dependence as complements seems equally compelling. The combination of sociological factors and symmetric dependence might provide greater inter-firm cooperation than employing them separately (Lee et al, 2017). Prior research has argued that symmetric dependence of inter-organizational exchange is socially embedded and complement in producing greater benefits (e.g., Dyer & Chu, 2011;Granovetter, 2005;Liu et al, 2009).…”

“…Although prior empirical research has extensively documented the effective roles of governance mechanisms, it remains in limited context of opportunism mitigation (e.g., Liu et al, 2009;Luo et al, 2015), relationship performance (e.g., Yang et al, 2016;Liu et al, 2017a) and conflict management (e.g., Yang et al, 2017;Lee et al, 2017;Lumineau & Henderson, 2012). A growing number of empirical studies demonstrate that economic structure of relationship exchange is sociologically embedded (e.g., Granovetter, 2005;Dyer & Chu, 2011).…”

(Dis)Trust, Control, and Project Success: From a Chinese Project Owner’s Perspective

“…However, the influence of social control is the most important, followed by outcome control and behavior control. Previous studies have paid more attention to formal control (i.e., outcome control and behavior control [94]). Therefore, owners' project managers should be aware of the critical role of social control.…”