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The effectiveness of interorganizational governance is one of the most significant concerns of firms involved in supply chain management. Previous studies have extensively examined various interorganizational governance strategies. However, the dynamic and implementation details of interorganizational governance receive little attention, which leads to the defects of interorganizational governance literature. This study tries to explore this issue.

Based on the process and cybernetic view, this study conceptualized four interorganizational governance processes and their respective critical activities to capture the dynamic and implementation details of interorganizational governance. Furthermore, this study investigated the mapping of governance strategies into different critical activities, which unveil the various manifestations of governance strategies across these critical activities.

Four interorganizational governance processes and their respective critical activities would overarch the dynamic and implementation details of governance strategies. Furthermore, various governance strategies also would have different manifestations across the critical activities of the four processes.

This paper fills the gaps in interorganizational governance literature in which the dynamic details of governance strategies are unclear. The new conceptualization provides a new paradigm for researchers to zoom in on the subtle dynamics of interorganizational governance. The new conceptualization indicates a few promising future research directions.

Governance is the key to establishing effective collaboration among humanitarian logistics partners addressing an ongoing relief work. With a focus on humanitarian interorganizational collaboration, this research draws on governance theories to investigate how conflicts can be mitigated in this challenging setting.

The focus on governance extends attention to the frontiers of contractual agreement, trust and environmental uncertainty to be applied in the humanitarian setting. To develop perspectives, an online survey of 289 field executives working in humanitarian organizations across the globe is conducted. The findings are based on hierarchical regressions.

Environmental uncertainty, in humanitarian logistics, is not straightforward, but wields distinctive challenges in the response phase (immediate to the disaster) as well as the recovery phase (beginning of build back) – to loom prospects of conflict between partners. Findings outline that contractual agreement can increase conflict during the response phase (high environmental uncertainty), but mitigate it during the recovery phase (low environmental uncertainty). Furthermore, contractual agreement interactively strengthens the ability of trust to reduce conflict. Yet, trust acting alone shows best outcome to mitigate conflict.

Contrary to the established understanding in traditional logistics suggesting the vitality of contracts to easily mitigate challenges posed by environmental uncertainty, the humanitarian setting extends a unique outset for interorganizational governance based on the temporality of response and recovery phases.

This research pioneers to quantitatively examine the setting of humanitarian logistics based on survey. Given the difficulty of data acquisition, the extant research has largely relied on qualitative investigations when considering the agenda of governance.

This paper aims to understand the factors of the exchange relationship that influence a target-partner’s decisions to adopt virtual governance strategies.

Hypotheses are tested using an online panel of 259 key informants from manufacturing firms that sell goods to retailers. Data are analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The study confirms the hypotheses that the target partner’s trust in the initiating partner is a significant driver of supply chain management system (SCMS) adoption intention. While trust fully mediates the adverse effects of technological uncertainty on adoption intentions, asset specificity directly influences both trust and adoption intentions. Additionally, the initiating-partner’s incentive orientation mitigates these effects and encourages SCMS adoption.

This paper contributes to the study of virtual governance and interorganizational adoption decisions in two primary ways. First, it elucidates the relationship between transaction costs and relational norms. Second, it examines the role that the shadow of past incentives has on the target-partner’s decisions to electronically integrate with the initiating partner.

The findings from this study contribute to the virtual governance and interorganizational technology adoption literature by demonstrating the relevance of characteristics of the exchange relationship in the target-partner’s decision to adopt the SCMS technologies necessary for electronic integration. This study provides a better understanding of the function of transaction costs and relational norms that paves the way for further exploration of the choice to adopt virtual governance strategies.

Given that SCMSs enable virtual governance, the findings of this study make important contributions to understanding how transactional and relational elements of the exchange relationship influence a target-partner’s decisions to participate in vertical control strategies with an initiating-partner.

The emergence of “interorganizational marketing” as a hot topic leads to one key question: can interorganizational governance mechanisms (socialization, incentives, and monitoring) offered by marketing theory be applied to China, an emerging economy characterized by the Chinese guanxi relationship? The purpose of this paper is to seek to answer this question by introducing the importance of guanxi roles and by illustrating how to apply proper governance mechanisms to roles activation in Chinese business practice. The paper finds that the answer is “yes” and develops a theoretical model to show such interactions.

The paper applies interorganizational strategies to interpersonal relationships. Guanxi was categorized into three categories – family members, helpers and business partners – which meet each of the three governance mechanisms (in addition to favoring exchange as a special and typical Chinese governance mechanism) in the model.

Through ex post role activation, the paper argues that guanxi is a dynamic balance and the ways in which various governance mechanisms can set roles will lead to the roles either changing (reinforcement or dilution) or switching (helper to business partner, and vice versa). It seems futile to implement external governance mechanisms on family ties (the main category of guanxi) that have been firmly rooted in Chinese culture. On the other hand, applying the four mentioned governance mechanisms could reinforce, maintain, or dilute helper and business partner roles, or even make it possible to switch from one to another.

The paper proposes a new concept regarding relationship marketing, namely the application of governance mechanisms to interpersonal relationships, which provides people doing business in China with a new perspective for reference.

With the growing trend of digital technology in global supply chains, how to manage global supply chain relationships under digital transformation becomes a critical issue. However, academic research in this area is sparse. This study develops and tests a theoretical framework of the moderating effect of virtual integration on interorganziational governance in international customer supplier relationships.

We chose to examine the specific cross-border relationships between Taiwanese suppliers and their international OEMs because Taiwanese suppliers tend to be smaller than their international OEM customers, and thus their relationships usually show power asymmetry. Furthermore, the Taiwanese electronics industry offers a valuable empirical context because its industry members have served as pioneers in information technology development, have championed cross-border relationships with US and European industry leaders and are actively participating in the world economy

Our empirical findings indicate that virtual integration will strengthen the effect contractual governance on relationship performance. However, the moderating effect of virtual integration on relational governance is not significant. The paper discusses the theoretical and managerial implications in the end.

This study contributes to interorganizational governance literature in international contexts. Previous work on international relationship management has focused much on MNE buyers' perspectives and paid little attention to the suppliers' perspectives. This study extends this stream of research by empirically examining how suppliers can govern their MNEs' customers via different governance mechanisms. The findings extend literature on virtual integration and show that virtual integration can complement detailed contract and safeguard opportunism, which in turn, enhance relationship performance in international customer–supplier relationships.

Drawing on the transactional cost economics (TCE) perspective, we aim to investigate the effects of the balance and imbalance between contractual and relational governance on a firm's bridging responses to supply chain disruptions. By adopting the institutionally contingent perspective, we further examine the moderating effect of cultural distance on the relationship between governance mechanisms and bridging responses.

Based on data collected from 183 firms in China, we use polynomial regression and response surface analyses to test our research model.

The bridging responses increase along with an increasing balance level between contractual and relational governance and decrease along with an increasing imbalance level between contractual and relational governance. Moreover, the positive effect of balance between contractual and relational governance is strengthened by a large cultural distance. We also find that a large cultural distance amplifies the negative effect of the combination of high relational governance and low contractual governance yet weakens that of the combination of high contractual governance and low relational governance.

Our study provides nuanced insights into the effects of the balance and imbalance between contractual and relational governance on bridging responses and into the cultural boundary conditions under which these effects vary.

Although existing partial theories contribute to scholarly understanding of strategic alliances, the lack of a comprehensive framework to explain strategic alliances is unfortunate. The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated framework for maker‐buyer strategic alliance performance.

Drawing on the concept of embeddedness developed by Granovetter, this paper argues that maker‐buyer alliances are economic actions intended to pursue synergies; meanwhile, these economic actions are embedded in social contexts.

This paper argues that the economic goal of firms entering alliances is to combine their complementary resources to create synergies. To achieve this goal, managers must efficiently manage the economic problems associated with such alliances, including searching for partners with complementary resources, allocating value‐added activities correctly, establishing efficient interorganizational routines, and introducing proper governance structures. Furthermore, alliances are embedded in their social contexts. Firms are constrained by their specific social environments and behave accordingly, impacting their performance. It is difficult for firms to modify the contexts in which they are embedded without strong strategic intent. The social contexts in which firms are embedded may also be sources of sustainable competitive advantage or disadvantage.

Several managerial implications and future research directions are presented.

This study, by integrating economic and sociological theories into a framework and focusing on maker‐buyer alliances, depicts not only the full picture but also the necessary details of maker‐buyer alliances for scholars and practical managers.

This paper aims to clarify ambiguous results from previous research on the relationship between contextual factors, trust and supply chain governance (SCG).

This study carried out a systematic literature review in 11 databases, with articles published until 2018. Afterward, this study conducted a thematic analysis in 60 articles to address the contextual factors, governance structures and trust approaches raised in previous research.

The thematic analysis revealed that seven contextual factors influence the choice of contractual and relational mechanisms in supply chains: relationship history, environmental uncertainty, perceived risk, perceived justice, asset specificity, power asymmetry and interdependence. The findings explained the ambiguous results of past research by proposing that contractual and relational governance are complementary and that the presence of trust (affective and competence-based) moderates the relationship between contextual factors and SCG.

This research advances the SCG literature by proposing trust (affective and competence-based) as a moderating variable that fosters governance mechanisms in supply chain relationships.

This study aims to explore the overall relationship between a boundary spanner and a partner firm, i.e. boundary spanner closeness to partner firm. Drawing on consumer-service provider relationship literature and the tripartite model of affect-behavior-cognition, the authors identify three key dimensions of such closeness, namely, boundary spanners’ relational ties, customer-specific capabilities and accommodative behaviors, and examine their effects on exchange outcomes in turbulent versus stable environments.

The paper examines the effects of three dimensions of boundary spanner closeness on various exchange outcomes (i.e. retailers’ cooperation, satisfaction and willingness for investment) using two industries as exemplars, characterized by distinct levels of environmental turbulence – the retailing networks of a major cell phone company and a petroleum company in China.

The results indicate that the three dimensions individually and jointly affect exchange outcomes and the interplay of customer-specific capabilities and relational ties affect exchange outcomes differently across industry turbulence.

The existing literature lacks a comprehensive understanding of the function of boundary spanners, which serve as a key relational interorganizational governance component. By identifying three key dimensions of boundary spanner closeness and examining their effectiveness in promoting exchange outcomes, this study advances the understanding of the role of boundary spanners in interorganizational governance.

Exporting manufacturers that pursue international expansion via foreign distributors face a trade off. Their decision to utilize international distributors as a market entry mode reduces some risks; however, the manufacturers do not enjoy control of the foreign channel. Given heterogeneity in global environments and often a significant geopolitical separation between manufacturers and international distributors, the ability to control the behavior of channel partners is inherently reduced. Consequently, natural conditions for opportunistic behavior are created (Karunaratna & Johnson, 1997; Klein & Roth, 1990).