The interaction effect of relational norms and agent cooperativeness on opportunism in buyer–supplier relationships
研究了关系规范和代理人合作性如何共同影响买卖关系中的机会主义行为，发现两者交互作用比单独作用更能解释机会主义，对采购经理和供应链管理者有参考价值。
Abstract In this study, we examined the effect of relational norms and agent cooperativeness on opportunism in buyer–supplier relationships. Drawing from the theoretical grounding of transaction cost economics, personality trait theory, and contingency theory, we proposed three distinct perspectives on opportunism mitigation in buyer–supplier relationships: (1) organizationalist, (2) individualist, and (3) interactionist, where relational norms, agent cooperativeness, and the interaction between them, respectively, serve as the key predictors in these three perspectives. The results of replicated experiments indicated that relational norms and agent cooperativeness interact with each other in mitigating opportunism and that the interactionist perspective yielded the highest explained variance in opportunism. This suggests that the interactionist perspective, a multi‐level theoretical lens encompassing the dynamic interplay between organization‐level and individual‐level factors, was a more complete model in explaining opportunism than either the organizationalist or individualist perspectives. The consensus which emerged from post‐experimental interviews of purchasing professionals is that agent personalities play an important role in buyer–supplier relationships. Some purchasing professionals had observed that uncooperative agents or personnel turnover in the boundary‐spanning functions can substantially undermine even established relational exchanges. These qualitative findings are in line with our theoretical arguments and experimental outcomes.