Efficiency arguments explain why commercial intermediaries exist and will continue to be involved in the exchanges despite the spread of digital networks. Commercial intermediaries provide producers and consumers with a set of information, logistic, securization and insurance (and liquidity)...

We study the effect of organizational choice and institutions on the performance of Spanish car dealerships. Using outlet-level data from 1994, we find that verticallyintegrated dealerships showed substantially lower labor productivity, higher labor costs and lower profitability than franchised...

How do firms' partnering strategies impact the size of their partner-based retail networks? We draw on agency theory to address this question in the context of franchising. Our econometric analyses, (based on nine years of longitudinal balanced panel data), include assessment of data...

This paper examines factors explaining subcontracting decisions in the construction industry. Rather than the more common cross-sectional analyses, we use panel data to evaluate the influence of all relevant variables. We design and use a new index of the closeness to small numbers situations to...

Technological and organizational change in the automotive sector is pushing the outsourcing of production to limits which would probably be astonishing a few years ago. Whereas vehicle brand owners tend to specialize in design, research and marketing, their suppliers produce components and...

How did Chinese merchants remedy opportunism in a prevailing scenario of weak state enforcement during the Spanish period in the Philippines? The paper attempts to analyze 19th century historical accounts in elucidating how the utilization of guanxi sanctions provides useful insights in...

The operational capacity represents one of the most important characteristics of the logistic system, from the perspective of its reliability. The present paper describes, concisely, in its first part, the theoretic foundations of the analysis and of the evaluation of a logistic system from the...