Salience and Relational Qualities within a Social Partnership: A Strategic Stakeholder Approach

Abstract

Social partnerships involve complex collaborations, and the partners enmeshed within these interorganizational relationships can be expected to seek out effective strategies for managing these associations. Building upon the stakeholder management literature, and drawing from exchange and resource dependence theories, we contend that the relational strategies adopted for interorganizational collaboration will be largely determined by two factors: (1) the perceived relative salience of the partner, and (2) the nature or qualities of the relationship between the organizations. In turn, we argue that partner salience is a function of perceived partner qualities (e.g., power, urgency, and legitimacy) and is moderated by the perceived qualities of one’s own organization. Using rich and unique data obtained from 331 participating organizations involved in intelligent transportation projects, we test these hypotheses and find that our model is well supported. Specifically, we find that when an organization deals with a more salient partner, and within a relationship characterized by higher levels of interaction and a positive climate, it will be significantly more likely to adopt collaborative strategies under a win-win orientation. On the other hand, when dealing with a less salient partner, an organization will tend to adopt more opportunistic or coercive strategies. Other contributions are discussed and opportunities for future research are presented.