The dark side of interorganizational relationships:An integrative review and research agenda

Scholars across management fields have paid increasing attention to the dark side of interorganizational relationships. We first summarize the concept of the “dark side” and its manifestations in interorganizational relationships. We then map the main findings on the antecedents, consequences, and moderating factors of the dark-side manifestations. We relate research gaps to opportunities in our integrative framework. Furthermore, we present a research agenda to advance theory on the manifestation characteristics, the entities and their motivations, the temporality issues, and the positive outcomes of dark-side manifestation

Inter-organizational communities of practice: specificities and stakes

Inter-organizational communities of practice (IOCoPs) are today an emergent research topic and studies in this area are still in an exploratory phase. Theoretical mechanisms are vaguely specified and empirical studies are incipient. For this reason, this paper firstly aims at presenting the specificities and stakes of such organizational forms, establishing reference points for further research in this field. We will introduce the main features of IOCoPs and explain why they do not represent a mere subcategory of CoPs, but a unit of analysis per se. In this paper, we will follow a thematic approach to indicate IOCoPs’ specificities and stakes. We will thus look at the IOCoPs’ actors (in part I), IOCoPs as original organizational forms (part II), then IOCoPs’ life cycle (part III). Finally, we will synthesize IOCoPs’ distinctive features and conclude with a discussion on key interests of IOCoPs for both practitioners and academics.Community of practice; inter-organizational relationships; professional practice; expertise; knowledge management; learning; organizational boundaries; life-cycle

Reinvigorating the study of opportunism in supply chain management

Opportunism is a core issue in supply chain management. However, assumption‐omitted testing and a focus on general opportunism as opposed to specific forms of opportunism have stubbornly limited our understanding of this construct. Grounded in a review of empirical studies of opportunism, we identify empirical challenges that perpetuate conceptual limitations in the study of opportunism in supply chains. Hence, we provide suggestions about research designs and data sources that support an agenda that steers research to refine and develop the theory about opportunism. Our call for a reinvigoration of the study of opportunism supports rigor – by discussing research design and data sources – and relevance – by identifying topics for future supply chain research

International Management as Management of Diversity : Reconceptualizing Distance as Diversity

Despite the importance of distance in international business and management research, the theoretical foundation for the concept and the underlying causal mechanisms are subject to shortcomings. We propose reinvigorating the study of distance through a diversity lens. We draw on research on diversity and develop a theoretical framework that distinguishes types of diversity (separation, variety, and disparity) at three levels (institutional, organizational, and individual). We show how this framework allows scholars to extend their analysis of distance, revisit important questions, and explore new issues. We discuss the theoretical and empirical implications of our diversity lens for the international business and management community.© 2021 The Authors. Journal of Management Studies published by Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

How coordination trajectories influence the performance of interorganizational project networks

This study examines how the joint use of integrators and contracts either enables or hampers coordination and, in turn, the performance of interorganizational project networks. Using extensive qualitative analyses and socio-metric techniques, we investigated coordination among organizations during seven small and medium-sized building projects. Our longitudinal study reveals how integrators develop connecting functions that, together with contracts' steering functions, largely drive coordination dynamics. Further data analyses provide insight into how coordination hinges on the prevalence of connecting or steering, which may more or less fit with coordination needs in various project phases. Given these findings, we theorize the contingent nature of the interplay between the use of integrators and contracts throughout projects. Our findings are integrated into a process model of how coordination trajectories lead to different performance levels of interorganizational project networks. Our study has theoretical implications for the literature on project-based organizing and, more broadly, the literature on interorganizational coordination. (17) How Coordination Trajectories Influence the Performance of Interorganizational Project Networks. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316692856_How_Coordination_Trajectories_Influence_the_Performance_of_Interorganizational_Project_Networks [accessed Sep 27, 2017]

Unrequited: Asymmetry in Interorganizational Trust

Many studies of interorganizational relationships assume that trust between organizations is symmetric. In this essay, we explore the origins of this assumption and examine relevant quantitative and qualitative evidence from the literatures on strategy, marketing, supply chain management, and information systems. We conclude that no systematic evidence currently exists to support the assumption that interorganizational trust is typically symmetric. We explore how the possibility of asymmetry complicates interpretation of previous research on the effects of interorganizational trust. We encourage further research to identify conditions under which symmetry is likely, and offer a variety of strategies that scholars may use to deal with potential asymmetry

Let’s work it out (or we’ll see you in court): litigation and private dispute resolution in vertical exchange relationships

We examine how partners in vertical exchange relationships actually resolve disputes that are sufficiently serious to get lawyers involved. Reaching beyond the usual domain of organizational and management research we leverage findings from law and economics to offer a novel organizational perspective on litigation and private dispute resolution, and develop hypotheses about the likelihood of litigation in different exchange settings. Our empirical analysis generates three sets of new findings: First, counter to the received wisdom we see that the involvement of lawyers does not necessarily signal the bitter end of an exchange relationship, as firms frequently manage to avoid litigation and resolve their disputes privately, and do so in a manner that accords with our theoretical predictions. Second, we see that familiarity with exchange partners does not automatically lead to increased willingness to work things out: rather, our empirical results suggest that the impact of exchange duration on parties’ willingness to resolve disputes privately is contingent on the development of norms of cooperation; in the event that such norms do not develop, the probability of a litigated outcome actually increases over time. Finally, we see that firms’ willingness to work things out privately is also influenced positively by the shadow of the future. These findings are suggestive of a “discriminating alignment” between exchange characteristics and the choice of dispute resolution procedure, and thus inject important new evidence into ongoing discussions about the legal underpinnings of different governance forms

Unrequited: Asymmetry in Interorganizational Trust

Many studies of interorganizational relationships assume that trust between organizations is symmetric. In this essay, we explore the origins of this assumption and examine relevant quantitative and qualitative evidence from the literatures on strategy, marketing, supply chain management, and information systems. We conclude that no systematic evidence currently exists to support the assumption that interorganizational trust is typically symmetric. We explore how the possibility of asymmetry complicates interpretation of previous research on the effects of interorganizational trust. We encourage further research to identify conditions under which symmetry is likely, and offer a variety of strategies that scholars may use to deal with potential asymmetry