earticle

영어

Manufacturer in uncertain environments (e.g., a volatile supply of parts, the shortage of product supplied or fluctuations in the price of raw materials) experiences the difficulty of making accurate predictions about the state of an environment (Achrol and Stern, 1988) and achieving objectives. This difficulty induces the manufacturer to develop governance mechanisms to reduce the risks inherent in those environments (Heide, 1994). Governance mechanisms will develop in uncertain environments in order to manage the relationship with its partners (Pavlou, Liang, and Xue, 2007). However, the manufacturer is confronted with the question: what kind of governance mechanism is suitable for dealing with the environmental uncertainty. The objective of this research is to enhance the understanding of the effects of environmental uncertainty on interfirm governance mechanisms under conditions reflecting varying levels of structural holes. No empirical study has examined the way in which uncertain environment influences exchange parties’ governance mechanisms in the face of structural holes. Specifically, this research explores the moderating effect of structural holes on the relationship between environmental uncertainty and interfirm governance mechanisms. This research contributes to the literature of networks in two ways. First, this research iron out the conflicting contentions between TCA (unilateral governance mechanism) and relational contract theory (bilateral governance mechanism) under conditions reflecting structural holes. The research explains that exchange partners are likely to choose a different kind of governance mechanisms (unilateral or bilateral) in uncertain environment depending on the level of structural holes. Secondly, the study introduces structural holes, a network structure, to explain governance mechanisms under environmental uncertainty situation. Structural holes enhance information flows among exchange partners and affect the information asymmetry arising from environmental uncertainty. Thus, it becomes evidence that structural holes could be a critical variable having a significant impact on the choice of mechanisms in an uncertain environment. Current research proposes that one party with structural holes in their exchange partners is incline to resort to bilateral governance mechanism, whereas those without structural holes are likely to rely on unilateral governance mechanism. The conceptual framework is provided Figure 1.