Fabrice Lumineau

• Professor at The University of Hong Kong

Despite the scholarly interest in contracts and trust governing interorganizational relationships, our understanding of how contracts influence trust remains limited by the way in which the interaction between the two constructs is conceptualized. By bringing together recent advances in the literature on interorganizational governance, I consider (...

Interorganizational relationships have attracted much scholarly attention in the last two decades. Despite the significant advances made in this field, the literature still largely relies on assumptions that overlook core features of interorganizational relationships. We build on the organizational research on pluralism to evaluate and identify opp...

The recent emergence of blockchains may be considered a critical turning point in organizing collaborations. We outline the historical background and the fundamental features of blockchains and present an analysis with a focus on their role as governance mechanisms. Specifically, we argue that blockchains offer a way to enforce agreements and achie...

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 disting...

We argue that war as a phenomenon deserves more focused attention in management. First, we highlight why war is an important and relevant area of inquiry for management scholars. We then integrate scattered conversations on war in management studies into a framework structured around three building blocks – (a) the nature of war from an organizatio...

For many firms, designing governance structures for their inter-organizational relationships is a key strategic challenge. Strategic management and other management scholars have successfully applied concepts from sociology, economics, and organization theory to analyze this challenge. Despite their attention to the relational dimension of governan...

McNamara and Schleicher (2024) have identified four principal paths for contributing to the Journal of Management (JOM): theoretical insights, phenomenon-driven research, research methodologies, and review papers. This editorial focuses on phenomenon-based research, emphasizing its potential for enhancing management knowledge by offering a nuanced...

Interorganizational relationships play a vital role in sustaining a firm's competitive advantage, but these relationships must continuously adapt to evolving conditions and unexpected circumstances. In this chapter, we synthesize a fragmented literature about interorganizational disruptions, which we organize around integrative taxonomy to help ass...

Control and trust issues are at the heart of collaboration in and between organizations. In this introduction to the Special Issue (SI) on the control‐trust dynamics, we first propose an integrative framework to take stock of the main themes discussed in both the micro and macro literature. We then contextualize how the papers in this issue flesh o...

Trust represents a key social mechanism facilitating collaboration in interorganizational relationships. Yet, the concept of interorganizational trust is surrounded by substantial ambiguity, especially as it pertains to the levels of analysis at which it is located. Some scholars maintain that trust is an inherently individual-level phenomenon, whe...

We explore how multimarket contact (MMC) explains competitors' intellectual property (IP) infringement-litigation dynamics. We build on role congruity theory to propose that the role played by each firm in shared markets generates expectations about their behavior, determining which of the following dynamics arise: mutual forbearance (low probabili...

Time has significant implications for the functioning of international strategic alliances. Drawing on a systematic review (1943-2022), we consolidate the literature around types of time (i.e., clock, event, cyclical, and life-cycle) and time facets (e.g., duration and speed) in international strategic alliances. This review's findings aid us in de...

Many people believe trust will become obsolete with the advancement oftechnology. Fabrice Lumineau, Oliver Schilke, and Wenqian Wang disagree. For them, trust will continue to play an important role. They writethat the concept of trust needs to be viewed in three ways: in terms ofwhat form organisational trust takes, how it is produced, and who nee...

Despite the prominent role of asset specificity in buyer–supplier exchanges, its influence on opportunism remains controversial. While transaction cost economics (TCE) addresses its potential to encourage opportunism, relational exchange theory (RET) highlights its role in discouraging opportunism. We extend this debate by considering (1) the effec...

Blockchains have become increasingly important for organizing contemporary economic and social activities. This Element offers a deeper understanding of blockchains to both management scholars and practitioners, with an emphasis on blockchains' strategic implications for fundamental issues in organizing. It provides a critical examination of the co...

In this essay, we argue that the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution calls for a reexamination of trust patterns within and across organizations. We identify fundamental changes in terms of (1) what form organizational trust takes, (2) how it is produced, and (3) who needs to be trusted. First, and most broadly, trust is likely to become mor...

Interorganizational projects often suffer disruptions that require participating organizations to adapt in order to restore project operations. We study the role of communication style in facilitating adaptation to such disruptions. Whereas the literature on interorganizational communication has emphasized communication mode and frequency, we study...

The prior literature on role congruity theory has revolved around demographic-based expectations, emphasizing role incongruity derived from a mismatch between prescriptive expectations of distinct roles. In this paper, we depart from this traditional focus on between-role incongruity and explore an alternative source of role incongruity by examinin...

Buyer-supplier relationships provide ample opportunities for trust violations to occur. Yet, the literature on the impact and outcomes of violations of trust in buyer-supplier relationships is underdeveloped. In this study, we report the results from three complementary scenario-based experiments that evaluate the impact of a supplier-induced viola...

Collaborations that require information sharing and mutual trust between companies, suppliers, and clients can be tough, particularly in the remote era. But blockchain’s distributed ledger — and its use of smart contracts — can simplify the process, creating a common, reliable record of transactions and avoiding costly disputes. In doing so, blockc...

Existing academic literature has discussed contracts and relational governance as the key mechanisms that help alliance partners address problems of cooperation and coordination. However, when an alliance undergoes disruption, the nature and extent of such problems may change and therefore the value of these mechanisms may change. This study advanc...

Blockchains are disrupting the business world, and their impact on the global economy will only continue to grow over the next decade, according to a recent study by PwC. While blockchains have previously been used mainly in the financial sector, they are becoming more and more widespread across all kinds of industries. But what changes do they bri...

In this essay, we argue that the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution requires a reconceptualization of trust patterns within and across organizations. We propose fundamental changes in (1) what trust is, (2) how trust is produced, and (3) who needs to be trusted. First, and most broadly, the nature of trust is likely to become more impersona...

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 evid...

This chapter discusses research on contracting in supply chain management and beyond. It examines the limitations sections of research on contracting in inter-organizational relationships (IORs) published this decade. A synthesis of contracting-related limitations reveals four major sets of issues. First, current conceptualization and operationaliz...

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...

We provide an analytic and systematic review of the impact of March and Simon’s seminal Organizations on management research and discuss the book’s value for current research and propose future applications of it. Building on bibliometric and text‐mining approaches, our empirical analysis reveals that although Organizations was contextually based i...

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....

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 evide...

Time and temporal aspects are at the core of how interorganizational relationships succeed, or fail, to create value. We argue that the use of multiple conceptualizations of time (e.g., clock time vs. phase time) aids to advance research on the temporal complexity that unpins the functioning of interorganizational relationships. We identify researc...

This article advances a cross-level model of trust development. Drawing upon an embedded-agency perspective from institutional theory, we combine a top-down with a bottom-up approach, reflecting the inherent duality of trust in organisational settings. Specifically, we elaborate a reciprocal process that illustrates how organisational structures in...

The literature on how exchange hazards influence interfirm governance remains ambiguous. Drawing on institutional theory, this study revisits this relationship by examining the moderating effects of national culture. By meta-analyzing 167 articles involving 38,183 interfirm relationships in 35 countries, we found support for the moderating effects...

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 sociometric techniques, we investigated coordination among organizations during seven small- and medium-sized building projects. Our...

While multi-organization projects are a core feature of many industries, the mechanisms through which coordination is achieved in such projects is poorly understood. The organizational literature has emphasized the role of prior ties in facilitating inter-organizational coordination. In contrast, we study coordination in projects in which prior tie...

Nicolai Foss and Libby Weber (2016) propose to augment the micro-foundations of transaction cost economics (TCE) through enriching the bounded rationality concept. They argue that psychological frames and biases, when linked to different hierarchical forms, may give rise to differential, costly conflicts. In their view, such conflicts are entirely...

Despite substantial scholarly interest in the role of contracts in alliances, few studies have analyzed the mechanisms and conditions relevant to their influence on alliance performance. In this paper, we build on the information-processing view of the firm to study contracts as framing devices. We suggest that the effects of contracts depend on th...

Despite the importance of organizational misconduct, we still do not know much about coordinated misconduct between firms. In this study, we get a better understanding of how the profile of the partners involved in cartels affects the longevity of their joint misconduct activities. Drawing upon diversity theory, we leverage a distinction between th...

Given the challenges associated with drafting technology-transfer contracts, we examine decisions to involve third parties offering technical or legal support in the contract-drafting process. We first argue that the attributes of the transaction are key drivers of third-party involvement. We then draw on the behavioral theory of the firm to develo...

While inter-personal conflicts have attracted much attention from scholars and practitioners over the last two decades, our understanding of inter-organizational conflicts remains limited. This paper critically assesses current literature on inter-organizational conflicts. We first discuss the specific features of conflicts at the inter-organizatio...

While inter-personal conflicts have attracted much attention from scholars and practitioners over the last two decades, our understanding of inter-organizational conflicts remains limited. This paper critically assesses current literature on inter-organizational conflicts. We first discuss the specific features of conflicts at the inter-organizatio...

Parallel to the very large scholarly interest in trust, scholars in management and related disciplines have made the case for the importance of distrust as a related but distinct construct. This paper critically assesses current literature on distrust in organizational settings. We first take stock of the extant research on organizational distrust...

Although extant literature has shown that formal contracts and relational governance play a key role in interorganizational relationships, the nature of their interplay still remains equivocal. To better understand the relationships between contractual and relational governance, we conducted a qualitative review and meta-analysis of the existing li...

Although extant literature has shown that formal contracts and relational governance play a key role in interorganizational relationships, the nature of their interplay still remains equivocal. To better understand the relationships between contractual and relational governance, we conducted a qualitative review and meta-analysis of the existing li...

While cartels can be highly detrimental to society and create important economic and social costs for different stakeholders, the literature on organization studies has focused very little on cartels to date. In particular, we still do not know much about firms’ reasons for taking part in cartels. In this study, we build on the rational choice pers...

In recent decades, the topic of interorganizational trust has attracted attention from many researchers. Thanks to their cumulative efforts, trust has been established as an important governance mechanism and as an enabler of collaboration between organizations. However, this literature has relied on strong assumptions. While these assumptions have...

While cartels can be highly detrimental to society and create important economic and social costs for different stakeholders, the literature on organization studies has focused very little on cartels to date. In particular, we still do not know much about firms' reasons for taking part in cartels. In this study, we build on the rational choice pers...

This paper theoretically refines and empirically extends the debate on the type of interplay between relational experience and contractual governance in an under-researched area: supply chain disputes. We define relational experience as either cooperative or competitive; distinguish between control and coordination functions of contractual governan...

This study investigates contracting mechanisms in situations of opportunistic disputes between organizations. We specifically explore the relationships between the formal versus informal nature of opportunism and the formal versus informal nature of contractual governance. We use a unique data set of 102 buyer-supplier disputes to explore in depth...

The contracting process is a crucial step in alliance development and its success. However, the existing literature reveals surprisingly little investigation into how organizational learning relates to the process of contract making. We therefore conducted an in-depth longitudinal study of the alliance contracting process in the animated film indus...

Leveraging a longitudinal dataset concerning 102 inter-firm disputes, we evaluate the effects of contract structure on trust and on the likelihood of continued collaboration. We theoretically refine and empirically extend prior research by (a) distinguishing between control and coordination functions of contracts, (b) separating goodwill-based and...

This paper investigates how contract structure influences interfirm dispute resolution processes and outcomes by examining a unique dataset consisting of over 150,000 pages of documents relating to 102 business disputes. We find that the level of contract detail affects the type of dispute resolution approach that is adopted when conflict arises, a...

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, a...

The contracting process is a crucial step in alliance development and its success. However, the existing literature reveals surprisingly little investigation into how organizational learning relates to the process of contract making. We therefore conducted an in-depth longitudinal study of the alliance contracting process in the animated film indus...

The article explores the influence of the type of contract on trust in the franchising context. The concept of framing is used to determine how franchisees make sense of a franchise contract. It is shown how the term framing is utilized to indicate that changes in the wording of decision problems can result in preference reversals. The differences...

This paper analyzes how timing in buyer-supplier disputes impacts subsequent negotiation strategies. We examine different facets of timing - when the dispute occurs during the contract, the process of negotiations unfolding and the time to respond to the other party - and their effects on the choice of a collaborative versus competitive negotiation...

In this paper we explore the impact of relational history on firms' willingness to "work things out" in subsequent agreements, by examining the way that disputes between partners in vertical exchange relationships are actually resolved. Counter to the received wisdom we find no evidence of an automatic preference for private dispute resolution (neg...

The article discusses misunderstandings between parties to strategic alliances, focusing on the possibility of divergent expectations which are not reflected in the formal contract. The importance of harmonizing expectations between allies is stressed and the concept of a psychological contract is described. Potential discrepancies between the psyc...

ABSTRACT The ability to resolve desputes via court ordering or private adjudication has been highlighted as a central concern in inter-firm governance in transaction cost economics (Williamson, 1991). It is thus surprising that this aspect of governance has received virtually no attention from TCE researchers. Integrating insights from previous res...

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, est...

Cet article procede a une analyse du texte d’Abraham Zaleznick portant sur le parcours de l’ex-secretaire a la Defense Robert McNamara (p. 45-70). Grâce a une critique hermeneutique de la demonstration de Zaleznik, les auteurs montrent que son habilete rhetorique sert une argumentation tacite.