An Institutional Theory Of Cooperation

Abstract

The focus of this study is to establish an institutional economics framework of interorganizational cooperation specific to supply chain management. In contrast to transaction cost economics, an institutional economics approach uses social institutions to explain transactions. This theory develops a framework using the causal relationships of interorganizational trust, individualism and collectivism, and JIT/TQM on interorganizational cooperation. Moreover, JIT/TQM is hypothesized to exert a superordinate goal effect over interorganizational trust and individualism and collectivism on interorganizational cooperation. This theory poses a new paradigm to explain the uneven adoption of interorganizational cooperation practices in the industrialized, newly industrialized, and post-communist societies