TY - JOUR
T1 - Buyer-supplier relationships on environmental issues
T2 - A contingency perspective
AU - Sancha Fernández, C.
AU - Wong, Christina W.Y.
AU - Giménez Thomsen, C.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to acknowledge the Guest Editors and three anonymous reviewers for the constructive and insightful suggestions provided to improve the earlier versions of this paper. This research is supported in part by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region ( PolyU 5017-PPR-12 ), and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University ( G-YZ48 ).The authors also acknowledge financial support from research grant ECO2010-16840 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and from research grant ECO/155/2012 (ref. 2014FI_B1 00203) from the Research and Universities Secretary, Economic Department, Generality of Catalonia .
Funding Information:
We are immensely grateful to Marius Liaaen and the engineers from the QA department of Cisco Systems Norway, who provided us with the feedback on this work and participated in our experimental evaluation study. This work has been supported by the Research Council of Norway through the Certus SFI project.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/1/20
Y1 - 2016/1/20
N2 - Our study analyzes the effectiveness of governance mechanisms (transactional or relational) in managing buyer-supplier relationships with respect to environmental issues. Based on data from 170 firms located in Hong Kong, this study empirically identifies the mechanism that enhances suppliers' commitment towards environmental protection, and hence allows buying firms to improve their environmental performance. In addition, we have adopted a contingency perspective to investigate the conditions (namely product complexity, relationship stability and relationship adaptability) under which these governance mechanisms are more effective in nurturing supplier commitment. Our results suggest that while both mechanisms lead to suppliers' commitment with environmental issues, their effectiveness can be leveraged if they are applied under specific conditions. In particular, transactional mechanisms are more effective in situations of high product complexity and high relationship stability and adaptability. Relational mechanisms show higher effectiveness if they are used in the context of low product complexity and low relationship adaptability. Furthermore, implications for managers are also derived from this study.
AB - Our study analyzes the effectiveness of governance mechanisms (transactional or relational) in managing buyer-supplier relationships with respect to environmental issues. Based on data from 170 firms located in Hong Kong, this study empirically identifies the mechanism that enhances suppliers' commitment towards environmental protection, and hence allows buying firms to improve their environmental performance. In addition, we have adopted a contingency perspective to investigate the conditions (namely product complexity, relationship stability and relationship adaptability) under which these governance mechanisms are more effective in nurturing supplier commitment. Our results suggest that while both mechanisms lead to suppliers' commitment with environmental issues, their effectiveness can be leveraged if they are applied under specific conditions. In particular, transactional mechanisms are more effective in situations of high product complexity and high relationship stability and adaptability. Relational mechanisms show higher effectiveness if they are used in the context of low product complexity and low relationship adaptability. Furthermore, implications for managers are also derived from this study.
KW - Buyer-supplier relationships
KW - Contingency
KW - Environmental
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84953273213&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.09.026
DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.09.026
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84953273213
SN - 0959-6526
VL - 112
SP - 1849
EP - 1860
JO - Journal of Cleaner Production
JF - Journal of Cleaner Production
ER -
