This article investigates why either the buyer or the supplier would accept the greater risks associated with asymmetrical investments in specific assets in an exchange relationship. It proposes theoretical arguments and offers empirical evidence from a sample of 149 buyer–supplier...

Business literature, especially in the field of operations management, advanced several models of production systems used by firms, among which we can recall Fordism and Toyotism. While such a literature analyses the strenghts and weaknesses of each of these models, highlinghting their impact on...

Case study based literature on relationship development presents in-depth information on contextual factors in relationship development. However, little quantitative evidence is available about key aspects of buyer-supplier relationships in each stage of its development, such as the level of...

This paper focuses on ex post governance of inter-firm transactions. We develop and test hypotheses on the occurrence of ex post problems like delivery delays, inferior quality, and insufficient service in buyer–supplier transactions. Our hypotheses address effects of transaction...

Three groups of sources of supplier dependence are discussed in the literature: factors related to goal mediation, factors related to relation-specific assets, and factors related to network embeddedness. This paper explores the influence on the dependence of ego and alter, as perceived by the...

RUTHERFORD T. D.(2000) Re - embedding, Japanese investment and the restructuring buyer - supplier relations in the Canadian automotive components industry during the 1990s, Reg. Studies 34, 739-751. In this paper, I draw on the developing embeddedness literature in economic geography and...