Collaborative manufacturer-distributor relationships: the role of governance, information sharing and creativity
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to report the results of a study examining the effects of manufacturer-distributor relationships' governance structures (market governance, third-party enforcement of agreements and self-enforcing governance modes) on the distributor's willingness to collaborate with the manufacturer.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the hypotheses, survey data were gathered from 224 wholesalers from the food and beverage industry in Spain. Manufacturer-distributor collaboration refers to the possibility of sharing strategic information and encouraging creativity. Regression analyses illustrate the differences in the distributor's willingness to collaborate with the manufacturer under different governance scenarios.
Findings
The study illustrates that the greater the skill of the manufacturers and distributors in developing self-enforcing governance modes (e.g. bilateral formal safeguards and bilateral informal safeguards) that complement third-party enforcement of agreements (e.g. legal contracts), the greater the willingness of both to share strategic information and creativity will be. Furthermore, this investigation delineates the moderating effect of opportunism on the relationship between governance and the distributor's willingness to collaborate with the manufacturer. Finally, the results show that the distributor's willingness to share strategic information has an inverted-U relationship with creativity and innovation development in manufacturer-distributor relationships.
Practical implications
The study's findings allow firms to concentrate their efforts on the most relevant governance structures that minimize transaction costs and provide incentives to develop collaborative manufacturer-distributor relationships and create value for the customer.
Originality/value
The research acknowledges the multidimensional nature of collaboration and goes deeper into the need to share strategic information (external and internal strategic information) and the factors that compose the generation of creative ideas in the manufacturer-distributor relationship (knowledge-sharing routines, learning orientation, open-mindedness and management support). Additionally, although research on collaborative distribution channel practices has advanced over the past decades, the importance of governance structures to the development of collaborative practices has not been firmly established. The paper addresses this void in the literature by reporting the results of an empirical study examining manufacturer-distributor collaborations within the food and beverage industry in Spain.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Cátedra Fundación Ramón Areces de Distribución Comercial (see http://catedrafundacionarecesdc.uniovi.es) for its valuable support for the development of this empirical research. Received 26 May 2011 Revised 16 August 2012 Accepted 21 August 2012
Citation
Vázquez-Casielles, R., Iglesias, V. and Varela-Neira, C. (2013), "Collaborative manufacturer-distributor relationships: the role of governance, information sharing and creativity", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 8, pp. 620-637. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-05-2011-0070
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited