IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/iburev/v34y2025i3s0969593125000289.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political affinity and opportunism in global supply chain: The mediating role of contractual and relational governance

Author

Listed:
  • Fan, Zhiwen
  • Wang, Tao
  • Han, Zhongyi
  • Jia, Yu

Abstract

The dynamic international relations reflect a world that global supply chains are challenged by the political environment in which they are embedded, especially for emerging market firms (EMFs). Drawing on legitimacy-based view and supply chain management literature, this study investigated how political affinity between home and host country affect the use of governance in deterring opportunism of local distributors in the host market, as well as the moderating role of directionality of institutional distance. Using a survey dataset of 403 Chinese export firms at two time points and two secondary datasets, we find that political affinity increases the opportunistic behavior of local distributors by impeding contractual governance and facilitating relational governance. In addition, the effect of political affinity on governance strategies is conditional on the directionality of institutional distance. That is, negative institutional distance strengthens the impact of political affinity on contractual governance, while the influence of political affinity on relational governance is attenuated in the presence of positive or negative institutional distance. Our findings provide important insights for academic research and managerial practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Fan, Zhiwen & Wang, Tao & Han, Zhongyi & Jia, Yu, 2025. "Political affinity and opportunism in global supply chain: The mediating role of contractual and relational governance," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(3).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:iburev:v:34:y:2025:i:3:s0969593125000289
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ibusrev.2025.102415
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593125000289
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2025.102415?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:iburev:v:34:y:2025:i:3:s0969593125000289. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/133/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.