Do Social Connections Mitigate Hold-up and Facilitate Cooperation? Evidence from Supply Chain Relationships
研究发现，供应商与客户之间的社会关系能缓解不完全契约下的敲竹杠问题，促进关系专用性投资和合作创新，并通过经理或董事退休/死亡导致的联系中断验证了因果关系。
Abstract We show that prior social connections can mitigate hold-up in bilateral relationships and encourage relation-specific investment and cooperation when contracts are incomplete. We examine vertical relationships and show that relation-specific innovative activities by suppliers increase with the existence and strength of prior social connections between the suppliers’ managers and board members and those of their customers. To establish causality, we exploit connection breaches due to manager/director retirements or deaths and find that innovation drops for affected suppliers after the departure of socially connected individuals relative to unaffected suppliers. Our work sheds light on how social connections can shape firm boundaries.