Inter-firm Relationships Research Articles

Business ecosystems and the view from the future: The use of corporate foresight by stakeholders of the Ro-Ro shipping ecosystem in the Baltic Sea Region

Ecosystems are viewed as important sources of innovation. While contracts, rules, policies, and industrial standards have been identified as important for coordinating and aligning inter-firm relationships, tools for the collective, collaborative orchestration of ecosystems have yet to be fully identified and articulated by scholars. The core contribution of this paper, the authors contend, is that corporate foresight tools, as applied at the level of the ecosystem, have the potential to orchestrate ecosystems. To this end, the authors examine the practical use of corporate foresight tools, in this case, roadmapping and scenario planning, as employed by ECOPRODIGI, an Interreg Baltic Sea project designed to advance the EU's strategy for eco-efficient Sustainable Blue Economy in the Roll-on/Roll-off (Ro-Ro) shipping ecosystem. Results demonstrate how ecosystem-level foresight significantly differs from traditional foresight centered around a focal firm. Corporate foresight tools, as applied to an ecosystem: 1) Target a diverse set of ecosystem actors beyond the segment's focal firm, including complementary firms, investors, and non-market actors; 2) Engage ecosystem actors, rather than only the focal firm, in shared strategy development based on a diverse mix of foresight tools; and 3) serve to orient and reify the ecosystem by charting the collective anticipation of innovations, policies, etc., in a shared set of future options. In the end, the authors find that corporate foresight tools operate as constitutive elements of ecosystems, that is, the tools help enact the ecosystem not as an abstract concept but as a shared, lived reality.

Combining Web of Science and Scopus datasets in citation-based literature study

Scientific research builds on previous studies and scientifically proven knowledge. Researchers must master the recent developments in the field when designing research to answer new questions. Today, the accessibility of research literature is abundant due to digitized publications, extensive coverage of citation indexes, and several literature databases. The means for conducting systematic literature reviews have greatly improved. In recent years, a lot of research with methods, such as systematic literature reviews, literature mapping, and visualizing studies, has been published. Despite the tools having been perfected, they still have limitations. Particularly, database selection for a literature search sets a bias, because the citation indexes differ in coverage according to the scientific domain. In this paper, bibliometric data from two citation indexes (Web of Science and Scopus) are combined for the purposes of bibliometric analyses in the context of inter-firm relationships. The combination process requires a lot of unifying and repairing of data in practice that is referred as data wrangling. This study describes the process steps and the lessons learned and considers the amount of effort required.

Leader humility and inter-firm collaboration: the moderating role of firm status and environmental uncertainty

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how CEO humility influences inter-firm collaboration (IFC) and the moderating roles of firm status (a firm's relative position in a social order) and environmental uncertainty on such an effect.Design/methodology/approachAs the firms were nested in township clusters, the theoretical model was tested using hierarchical linear modeling to analyze a multisource and multilevel onsite survey from 254 firms in Chinese township clusters. CEO humility was measured using an 18-item scale reported by both the human resource managers and the financial managers. Besides using CEO self-reported ratings as the measurement of IFC, this study employed additional measurements to further validate the findings, including the IFC reported by the administrative managers and two alternative measures for IFC reported by both CEO and the administrative managers of each firm.FindingsThis study found that CEO humility is positively related to IFC (H1), and that this association is marginally more salient when firms have high status (H2) but less salient when firms face a high level of environmental uncertainty (H3).Practical implicationsFindings suggest that firms with humble CEOs may benefit from better inter-firm collaborative relationships, especially when firms have high status (i.e. possess many well-known trademarks), but not when they are in an uncertain environment.Originality/valuePrevious humility studies focused on the influence of leader humility on individual and team outcomes, but little attention has been paid to organizational outcomes. This research extends the implications of leader humility to inter-firm relationships. Moreover, this paper explores the boundary conditions of the influence of CEO humility, thus advancing the contextual understanding of leader humility.

Hidden Threats and Overlooked Solutions: Unnoticed Risks and Firm Action in Latin America

Work on institutional distance has documented a number of challenges that multinational corporations face when they begin operations in distant countries. Although it has also focused principally on how socio-political risks generated by the difficulties can be mitigated by political ties, the manners in which local firms address these problems has been overlooked. At the same time, scholars in this field have not fully documented the array of socio-political challenges firms face. The field of international business needs theories that go beyond those based on new institutional economics to discover new sources of risk and how they are mitigated. I argue that the varieties of capitalism approach provides the proper framework for undertaking this type of work. I use this approach to examine how an Argentine multilatina developed a network organizational structure that effectively mitigated these risks in inter-firm relations and finance in Argentina and failed to mitigate such risks in the areas of inter-firm relations and employee relations in Brazil. I also coin the term indigenous assets to describe the type of knowledge MNEs need to acquire before entering new countries. This article concludes by explaining the relevance of its findings for theory and praxis.

Digital transformation and value chains: Introduction

AbstractNew digital technologies based on the internet of things and artificial intelligence play centre stage in contemporary discussions about the prospects for economic development and the future of work. This article summarizes theoretical and empirical contributions on how these technologies affect global value chains (GVCs). We argue that the leading paradigms that analyse global production – the GVC framework and the related global production networks (GPNs) approach – are in need of some ‘technological uprading’ themselves. The GVC/GPN approaches acknowledge that technology is constitutive for the emergence of geographically fragmented production, but rarely address directly how technological change affects interfirm relations. The authors provide a framework that acknowledges the key role of technology while situating digital tools and systems in their social embeddedness, that is the role of human agency and institutions in shaping their development and impact. A research agenda is outlined focusing on three topics: the varieties of digitalization approaches in different world regions, the role of data as a specific form of intangible resource and the role of platform business models for industrial ecosystems. These topics are addressed in the special issue of Global Networks on ‘Digitalization and Value Chains’ introduced by this contribution.

Being creative under the Covid-19 pandemic crisis: the role of effective inter-organizational relationship management

PurposeAnchored on the broaden-and-build theory and the circumplex model, the authors develop and test a conceptual model in which satisfaction, influenced by an effective handling of communication, cooperation, conflict, and opportunism, is set as the predictor of inter-partner creativity in the relationship between hotels and their foreign travel agents under the Covid-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual model was tested with data collected from 190 randomly selected hotel units located in Greece, using both online and drop-in questionnaire methods. Data were analyzed using SEM analysis.FindingsSatisfaction with the working relationship was found to be enhanced by improving communication and cooperation, as well as by keeping conflict and opportunism at low levels. This was a strong predictor of inter-partner creativity, although less pronounced under high levels of relational distance and rigidity.Research limitations/implicationsThe study should be extended to other country settings, replicated at different levels of crisis severity, and use dyadic data. Additional environmental factors could be used as boundary conditions, while our model could be expanded to include additional drivers and consequences of inter-partner creativity.Practical implicationsTo generate inter-partner creativity, there is a need to maintain high levels of satisfaction through proper communication, enhanced cooperation, conflict minimization, and avoidance of opportunistic actions. Also, to better translate satisfaction into inter-partner creativity, interacting parties should keep distance at low levels, while at the same time demonstrate greater flexibility.Originality/valueThe study unveils the role of effectively managing behavioral factors in inter-firm relationships to develop creative solutions to the Covid-19 crisis challenges, an issue neglected by prior research. The study also sheds light on the contingent effects of distance and rigidity, two important factors moderating relationships under crisis. The study applies for the first time two psychological-based theories, the broaden-and-build theory and the circumplex model, to an international marketing crisis situation.

Maximizing customer adoption outcomes in emerging industrial markets via supplier innovativeness and relationship quality

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how suppliers doing business with customers in emerging industrial markets can leverage their innovativeness to foster trust and commitment toward maximizing customer adoption behaviors.Design/methodology/approachBased on commitment-trust theory, this research uses survey data collected from a large sample of Chinese business-to-business executives, which were then analyzed using three-stage least squares simultaneous estimation models and PROCESS.FindingsThe results show that supplier innovativeness can help customers build trust in a supplier. Consequently, a reciprocal commitment is forged among customers that manifest in favorable adoption decisions, including a higher willingness to pay premium prices. Notably, this approach is beneficial when robust interfirm communications are difficult to establish.Originality/valueInnovation decisions in interfirm relationships are important for suppliers doing business in emerging markets. This is because customer adoptions in such settings can foster enduring relational market-based assets and other competitive advantages that can improve supplier performance. Unfortunately, the understanding of how interfirm relationships influence innovation-adoption decisions in emerging markets is lacking. The findings of this research shed light on how suppliers interested in entering emerging markets can interact with customer firms in such settings to maximize favorable adoption outcomes.

The bright side of dependence asymmetry: Mitigating power use and facilitating relational ties

Dependence asymmetry may trigger firms' common-interest orientation and suppress their self-interest seeking, thus generating positive effects on firms' behaviors in buyer–supplier relationships (BSRs). To further demonstrate the positive role and influencing mechanism of dependence asymmetry, we examine the impact of dependence asymmetry on buyer's use of power and relational ties. We also explore the moderating role of buyer's psychological contract fulfillment (PCF). We test the proposed relationships using polynomial regression and the response surface analysis based on data collected from 200 Chinese manufacturers. The results indicate that dependence asymmetry negatively affects buyer's use of power and positively influences relational ties directly and indirectly through decreasing buyer's use of power. Moreover, buyer's PCF negatively moderates the effect of dependence asymmetry on buyer's use of power and the indirect effect of dependence asymmetry on relational ties. This study contributes to dependence literature by identifying the bright side of dependence asymmetry and validating the mechanism of how dependence asymmetry influences behavioral outcome and relational factor. This study also enriches the literature on psychological contract by demonstrating the significant role of PCF in the context of interfirm relationships. Our findings provide insightful guidelines for firms to better understand interdependence structure and take appropriate actions when facing different interdependence structures.

Internal capital markets and predictability in complex ownership firms

Using global cross-firm ownership data, we find that both stock returns and cash-flow news of ownership-linked firms predict focal firm's returns for all types of ownership structures: subsidiary−parent, parent−subsidiary, subsidiary−subsidiary, and parent−parent. This effect, observed only after the establishment of cross-firm ownership, is not subsumed by focal firm or industry momentum, or alternative inter-firm relations, including customer−supplier links and shared analyst coverage. Our findings are explained by mispricing due to internal capital markets – a mechanism unique to complex ownership firms. Higher internal capital market activity among ownership-linked firms also induces larger investments and lower external financing of the focal firm.

Transaction-Specific Investment and Organizational Performance: A Meta-Analysis

Transaction-specific investment and organizational performance are two core concepts in studies of transactions between firms. The existing literature has explored the effect of transaction-specific investment on organizational performance from three different theoretical perspectives: transaction cost economics (TCE), the resource-based view (RBV), and social exchange theory (SET). However, considerable ambiguities and inconsistencies exist among the hypotheses and relevant empirical study results, which have brought confusion to academic research and practice. This study adopted a meta-analysis method to conduct a quantitative review of 58 existing empirical studies, and obtained a total sample size of 16,092. These results suggest more TSIs in buyer–seller relationships, which can improve both economic and social performance, especially regarding technological performance and relationship performance. Moreover, tangible TSIs are more efficient, although they are considered vulnerable to opportunistic behavior in previous research, and contextual factors are also considered as moderators. These findings enrich the existing inter-firm relationship literature and provide clear suggestions for companies’ TSI decisions.

Clusters: Coordination, inter-firm relationships and competitive advantages

Clusters: Coordination, inter-firm relationships and competitive advantages

Effective cooperation modes based on cultural and market similarities in interfirm relationships

This study explores appropriate cooperation modes based on cultural and market similarities and suggests two alliance cooperation modes: 1) contractual cooperation and 2) relational cooperation. We collected secondary data from diverse sources, including the SDC Platinum, Compustat, and CRSP databases. We examined 349 alliances in high-tech industries from 2001 to 2009. We used an event study methodology to measure abnormal stock returns associated with the announcement of an alliance because it provides a forward-looking metric of expected performance. The results show that equity sharing enhances the positive effects of cultural distance on a focal firm's returns while repeated partnership exacerbates the negative effects of product market similarities on a focal firm's returns. This research contributes to alliance literature, providing explanation for choosing an appropriate cooperation mode considering both transaction cost economics (TCE) and a resource-based view (RBV). This study suggests that the effect of a contractual or relational cooperation mode depends on the competitive or cooperating role of similarity. Additionally, our study tries to provide guidelines for managers in selecting an appropriate cooperation mode depending on the relationship characteristics of the two companies. • The similarity between two firms can take on either a competitive or cooperating role depending on the type. • Choosing the suitable cooperation mode depending on the role of similarity determines firm performance. • The positive effects of cultural distance are enhanced through equity sharing in a focal firm’s returns. • The negative effects of product market similarity are aggravated through repeated partnership in a focal firm’s returns.

Inductive Representation Learning on Dynamic Stock Co-Movement Graphs for Stock Predictions

Co-movement among individual firms’ stock prices can reflect complex interfirm relationships. This paper proposes a novel method to leverage such relationships for stock price predictions by adopting inductive graph representation learning on dynamic stock graphs constructed based on historical stock price co-movement. To learn node representations from such dynamic graphs for better stock predictions, we propose the hybrid-attention dynamic graph neural network, an inductive graph representation learning method. We also extended mini-batch gradient descent to inductive representation learning on dynamic stock graphs so that the model can update parameters over mini-batch stock graphs with higher training efficiency. Extensive experiments on stocks from different markets and trading simulations demonstrate that the proposed method significantly improves stock predictions. The proposed method can have important implications for the management of financial portfolios and investment risk. Summary of Contribution: Accurate predictions of stock prices have important implications for financial decisions. In today’s economy, individual firms are increasingly connected via different types of relationships. As a result, firms’ stock prices often feature synchronous co-movement patterns. This paper represents the first effort to leverage such phenomena to construct dynamic stock graphs for stock predictions. We develop hybrid-attention dynamic graph neural network (HAD-GNN), an inductive graph representation learning framework for dynamic stock graphs to incorporate temporal and graph attention mechanisms. To improve the learning efficiency of HAD-GNN, we also extend the mini-batch gradient descent to inductive representation learning on such dynamic graphs and adopt a t-batch training mechanism (t-BTM). We demonstrate the effectiveness of our new approach via experiments based on real-world data and simulations.

Inter-firm power relations and working conditions under new production models

AbstractIn investigating recent changes to the automotive industry production process, such as modularisation, our work emphasises the process of fragmentation of production as a configuring element of inter-firm power relationships, and as an explanatory element in working conditions. From a theoretical framework focused on power relations, we analyse by way of a selected case study how the capabilities of companies and their network positions, together with the agency of labour, shape the power relations that influence the evolution of working conditions. The study does indeed find relevant changes to inter-firm relationships, for example, within networks of assemblers and suppliers, but without a consequent re-balancing of power. This finding serves to explain differences in the evolution of working conditions between distinct companies, these conditions being fully functional to a strategy for profitability and thus difficult to reverse.

Boundary resource interactions in solution networks

PurposeThis study aims to explore the interactions between two different and potentially complementary boundary resources in coordinating solution networks in a digital platform context: boundary spanners (those individuals who span interorganizational boundaries) and boundary interfaces (the devices that help coordinate interfirm relationships, e.g. electronic data interchanges, algorithms or chatbots).Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a multiple case study of three firms using digital platforms to coordinate solution networks in the information communication technology and lighting facility industries. Data were collected from 30 semi-structured interviews, which are complemented by secondary data.FindingsAs task complexity increases, smarter digital interfaces are adopted. When the intelligence level of interfaces is low or moderate, they are only used as tools by boundary spanners or to support boundary spanners’ functions. When the intelligence level of interfaces is high or very high, boundary spanners design the interfaces and let them perform tasks autonomously. They are also sometimes employed to complement interfaces’ technological limitations and customers’ limited user ability.Research limitations/implicationsThe industry contexts of the cases may influence the results. Qualitative case data has limited generalizability.Practical implicationsThis study offers a practical tool for solution providers to effectively deploy boundary employees and digital technologies to offer diverse customized solutions simultaneously.OriginalityThis study contributes to the solution business literature by putting forward a framework of boundary resource interactions in coordinating solution networks in a digital platform context. It contributes to the boundary spanning literature by revealing the shifting functions of boundary spanners and boundary interfaces.

The impact of contractual governance on forms of opportunism

The relationship between contractual governance and partner opportunism is widely discussed in the interfirm governance literature. However, a consensus regarding whether contractual governance increases ex post opportunism or whether such opportunism can be curtailed by contractual or social governance is lacking. We believe that this inconclusive state is due to the insufficient demarcation between different types of opportunism and the unclear temporal treatment of contracts. The findings from 227 firms with interfirm cooperation experience reveal that ex ante contract completeness reduces ex post strong form opportunism while increasing weak form opportunism in a curvilinear manner. Moreover, ex post contractual enforcement alleviates the negative impact of strong form opportunism on cooperation performance but shows no significant influence on the negative effect of weak form opportunism. Conversely, ex post social enforcement alleviates the negative impact of weak form opportunism, suggesting a match between forms of opportunism and types of enforcement. Our study advances the understanding of contract design and the use of governance mechanisms within interfirm relationships.

Does Supply Chain Concentration Affect the Performance of Corporate Environmental Responsibility? The Moderating Effect of Technology Uncertainty

With the development of society and the improvement of environmental consciousness, the performance of corporate environmental responsibility (CER) has elicited increasing attention in recent years. In previous studies, the exploration of the antecedents of CER is far less evident than the exploration of its results, and only few studies have investigated what determines CER engagement from the perspective of supply chain concentration (SCC). Using data from 2413 firms in China from 2013 to 2019, our study uses the fixed effect model and performs multiple robustness tests to examine the impact of SCC on the fulfillment of CER, its transmission mechanism, and the moderating role of technology uncertainty (TU). Empirical results show that SCC has a pivotal negative impact on CER performance, wherein both supplier concentration (SUP) and customer concentration (CUS) are detrimental to CER performance. Further mechanism analysis shows that such negative effect can be explained by the adverse effect of SCC on the operating cash flow (OCF), in which OCF has a partial mediating effect. Moreover, the negative impact of SCC on CER performance is more significant when the uncertainty of firms’ technological environment is stronger. Our study opens the transmission “black box” between SCC and CER performance and incorporates the behaviors of firms, inter-firm relationships, and environmental factors into the same research framework, and provides a theoretical guidance for management practices.

Innovation-oriented dynamic capabilities of logistics service providers, dynamic resilience and firm performance during the COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to use a theoretical framework to investigate the relationships between different innovation-oriented dynamic capabilities, dynamic resilience and firm performance among logistics service providers (LSPs) and in-house logistics departments of industrial companies during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual theoretical framework relies on the dynamic capabilities framework (DCF) and the relational view (RV), which are rooted in the resource-based view (RBV). It is hypothesized that the dynamic capability to innovate reinforces the dynamic capability to adapt and to recover in highly dynamic and vulnerable environments during the pandemic. This allows LSPs to successfully create new services and respond to the changing market circumstances in terms of logistics service quality (LSQ) and firm performance. Data were collected from 83 LSPs and 30 in-house logistics departments via an online survey. The study determined the general strength and direction of the relationships between latent variables. A correlation analysis was utilized to establish statistical significance of the results.FindingsIn this study, a range of innovation-oriented capabilities for achieving more dynamic resilience were bundled in a conceptual framework and were found to be statistically significant for LSQ and firm performance. They are the capability to distribute new knowledge, to train employees effectively, to develop cross-functional collaboration within the firm, to develop inter-firm relationships with business partners on a long-term basis as well as to learn from rivals, and to pursue a win-win relationship with them.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of the study do not imply that the identified capabilities are the only ones relevant to increasing dynamic resilience during the pandemic. In October 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was at different stages in different countries, so that the level to which firms were affected varied, and although the data were collected during one month only, due to the high dynamics of the pandemic, data were collected during different stages of disruptions, even among respondents in the same country. This study was set in the context of COVID-19, and it could not be proved whether the conceptual framework is generalizable to other crises or particular industries, but it would be worthwhile to examine this in the future. Finally, it was not tested whether LSQ mediates the relationship between innovative capabilities and firm performance during the pandemic.Practical implicationsThe results help managers with regard to their strategic and operational decisions in relation with COVID-19. These findings are useful for executives and logistics managers to improve these capabilities to gain a competitive advantage during pandemic and to find their strengths and weaknesses to develop critical capabilities for situations with a high turbulence and dynamic in their environment, and therefore provide a path for improvement.Originality/valueThis paper operationalizes a multi-theoretical conceptual framework in the context of logistics management (LM) and supply chain management (SCM). This conceptual framework was empirically tested.

Inter-firm relationship development in project-based companies: results of an empirical study

Inter-firm relationship development in project-based companies: results of an empirical study

Inter-firm relationship development in project-based companies: results of an empirical study

Inter-firm relationship development in project-based companies: results of an empirical study