Customers’ Social Capital and Suppliers’ Profitability
研究发现客户所在地的社会资本（如社会规范强度和社会网络密度）能抑制其机会主义行为，从而提升供应商的盈利能力，且这种效应在客户距离供应商更近、短期激励更强或议价能力更大时更显著。
We empirically examine the effect of customers’ social capital on the financial performance of suppliers. Social capital, as captured by the strength of secular norms and the density of social networks in local geographical regions, reflects social influences surrounding corporate headquarters. Because customers’ social capital could constrain their opportunistic behaviors and improve supply chain collaboration through its influence on managers’ moral values and external monitoring, we hypothesize and find a positive association between customer social capital and supplier profitability. The association is more pronounced when customers reside closer to suppliers, have more short-horizon incentives, and possess stronger bargaining power. Collectively, our findings suggest that social capital arising from institutions in local areas may mitigate customer opportunism and highlight its real effects that spill over to suppliers’ operational performance.