An empirical examination of the stability of the alliance of “a company+farmers” : From the perspective of farmers

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explain the stability of the alliance of “a company+farmers” from the perspective of farmers. Design/methodology/approach – Based on 462 usable data collected through survey, structural equation modeling (SEM) technology was employed to examine the research model. Findings – From farmers' perspective, the authors find that the positive correlation between alliance performance and alliance stability, relationship quality promotes alliance performance and different powers have different impacts on relationship quality. Together, these results illustrate the formation process of the stability of the alliance “a company+farmers”. Research limitations/implications – This research is limited to a particular sample: farmers from Guangdong and Hainan Province in China. Thus, the results need to be generalized to other samples. Originality/value – Previous studies do not have good explanations on the formation mechanism of the stability of the alliance of “a company+farmers”. From the perspective of farmers, based on resource dependence theory, social exchange theory, this study builds an empirical model of “power‐relationship quality‐alliance performance‐alliance stability” to address the gap.