Mirror, mirror on the wall… Who's the most opportunistic and compliant of them all?

Purpose – The present research aims to revisit the relationships between buyer dependence on suppliers, relational norms between two parties in a buyer-supplier dyad, and a buyer's tendency to either engage in opportunistic behaviors or comply with a supplier's request as an exception condition. The authors adopt a supplier's perspective to examine the supplier's anticipation of the buyer's behaviors. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the original studies conducted by Joshi and Arnold, the authors extend both works using a similar methodology but with a different data sample. The previously validated buyer-supplier relationship supply disruption scenario presented in the original studies is rewritten from a supplier's perspective to examine the supplier's anticipation of the buyer's behaviors. Subjects are asked to assume the role of an account manager within the key supplier firm for an electronic equipment manufacturer and to respond to how they deal with the supplier's expectation of how the buying firm may behave in terms of compliance and opportunism. Findings – The results show that buyer dependence is positively related to buyer compliance behaviors and that this relationship holds irrespective of the buyer's or supplier's perspective on the supply disruption scenario and irrespective of professional or student subjects. Other findings include the contingency of the moderating effect of relational norms on the link between dependence and buyer compliance on various factors, and the existence of a boundary condition for the moderation effect of relational norms on the link between dependence and buyer opportunism. Originality/value – The study should prove valuable to academics and professionals alike. It reinforces the notion that buyers that are more dependent and reliant on suppliers are more willing to comply with supplier's needs. Also, it considers the possibility that supply chain agents from both the buyer and supplier sides may value the effect of relational norms differently, with suppliers perceiving that relational norms have more of a direct influence on a buyer's behavior. Lastly, the replication study extends the understanding of the generalizability of the original studies.