A “frontier issue” in international marketing is the appropriate choice of entry mode in foreign markets. The objective of this paper is to offer a transaction cost framework for investigating the entry mode decision. This framework provides 1) a theoretical basis for systematically...

The literature on chief executive officers (CEOs) established that economics and sociological rationales are both essential to understand the level and structure of CEOs' compensation. Our thesis is that internal "transaction costs" or frictions override strictly economic criteria to determine...

Opportunism is a central construct in exchange theory. Economists contend that despite the firm's best efforts to erect governance structures that reduce opportunism and preserve outcomes, there is always some opportunism that remains once the transaction is in place. Despite this, there are few...

We focus on the principal-agent relationship in a distribution channel. In a services context (insurance), we examine how two facets of performance, from the point of view of both the principal and the agent, are influenced by the perceiver's belief that it is more committed to the relationship...

This descriptive study explores the reasons for integration of the personal selling function, i.e., the use of employee (“direct”) salespeople rather than manufacturers' representatives (“reps”). A hypothesized model is developed based on both transaction cost analysis and the sales...

This descriptive study explores the reasons for integration of the personal selling function, i.e., the use of employee (“direct”) salespeople rather than manufacturers' representatives (“reps”). A hypothesized model is developed based on both transaction cost analysis and the sales...

Recently, increasing attention has been paid to the question of how to build stable, long-term relationships between manufacturers and members of conventional channels. This descriptive field study concerns a basic requirement for building long-term relationships, which is the expectation by a...

The authors dedicate this paper in honor of the memory of their deceased co-author, Erin Anderson. In dyadic business relationships, parties can be incorrect in reading their counterparts' relational closeness. For example, they can overestimate or underestimate the counterpart's commitment to...