Robert Dahlstrom

• Professor at Miami University

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine role stress over the course of an alliance between supply chains. This study examines ambiguity as antecedent to multiple organisational outcomes. Design/methodology/approach This study subsequently uses a time series design that uses a close replication of the authors’ initial study. The design affo...

This study examines how the widespread use of co-branding through strategic alliances affects role ambiguity among retailers. The prevailing logic suggests that vertical control limits uncertainty, yet this is not consistently supported. We investigate the ability of vertical control mechanisms to curtail role ambiguity among franchisee entrepreneu...

Purpose This study presents a bibliometric review of environmental performance in business to business relationships research. Design/methodology/approach We applied suitable keywords to retrieve relevant peer-reviewed articles from the Web of Science database between 1992 and 2019. The study uses bibliographic coupling as a tool to screen 358 rel...

Abstract Purpose – This study aims to systematically examine gender specific behavioral differences and similarities in online shopping consumers, underlying theories for such differences and similarities and moderating and mediating roles of gender in studying the effects of online marketing strategies. This synthesis explores gender differences...

Purpose The topic of brand personality (BP) has received extensive research attention in the last 2 decades, with a particular focus on examining its antecedents and consequences. This study, therefore, systematically reviews and synthesizes extant research on antecedents and consequences of BP of consumer products. Design/methodology/approach A s...

Exchange partners devise and implement contracts to improve performance within a relationship. Detailed, specific contracts provide a blueprint designed to guide desired interfirm behavior, and firms may use the contract to resolve disputes and to ensure the partner fulfills its obligations. Extant research, however, reports contradictory findings...

In buyer-supplier relationships, salespeople engage in behaviors that buyers may (or may not) view as deceptive. Despite the salesperson’s underlying miscreant or innocent motives, buyers have a difficult time attributing the intentionality of salesperson behaviors after the fact. While extant research has explicated various governance mechanisms t...

There has been an exponential growth of new electronic products in the global consumer market. New electronic consumer products generate a growing need for new methods, processes and entrepreneurship in recycling. In this study, we examine how entrepreneurs involved in the recycling of electronic products innovate to create a more sustainable circu...

Corporate Green Innovation in Sustainable Reversed Logistics in Norway. Abstract There has been an exponential growth in innovation and the introduction of new electronic products in the global consumer market. New electronic consumer products generate a growing need for new methods, processes and entrepreneurship in recycling. In this study, we ex...

Exploring the Pursuit of Sustainability in Reverse Supply Chains for Electronics Abstract: This study examines reverse supply chains in the electronics industry. The analysis characterizes the flow of resources among firms in a reverse supply chain in the Norwegian electronics industry. The study subsequently examines influences of governance mech...

Multinational corporations (MNCs) are adopting increasingly diverse and complex marketing channels to sell their products worldwide. They strive to manage channels that confront diverse demands from headquarters, foreign subsidiaries, and local partners as well as complex market environments. Because extant research on MNCs’ marketing channels is s...

Previous empirical research has largely neglected the mediating role of green innovations on the top management commitment-customer cooperation relationship. This study examines effects of green process innovation and green managerial innovations on this relationship. An empirical analysis with a sample of 181 ISO 14001 Turkish manufacturing firms...

Collaboration between buyers and their suppliers often requires both parties to dedicate specialized investments to the relationship. These bilateral idiosyncratic investments serve as mutual hostages and signal commitment to the relationship, yet they are susceptible to expropriation. Drawing on research in social psychology and transaction cost e...

The study investigates the performance effects of postalliance role stress among retail managers. Co-branded alliances produce dynamic and complex role structures subject to psychological conflict and ambiguity. These co-branded outlets enable firms to enter markets efficiently, lower relative operating costs, and raise performance. Despite the see...

ABSTRACT We investigate the performance effects of post-alliance role stress among retail managers. Co-branded alliances produce dynamic and complex role structures subject to psychological conflict and ambiguity. These co-branded outlets enable firms to enter markets efficiently, lower relative operating costs, and raise performance. Despite the...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine change requests in buyer-supplier relationships. Change requests arise when a channel partner wants an addition or alteration to the agreed-upon deliverable. Although these requests are intended to enhance consumer satisfaction and supply chain performance, they complicate development and productio...

This study examines how organizational form (corporate or franchised store) and local market characteristics (competition, size and risk of sanctions) influence retail stores' likelihood of selling alcohol to minors. Drawing on agency theory, we hypothesize that franchised stores are more likely than corporate stores to sell alcohol to minors. We a...

Oliver Williamson, Professor at Berkeley and the Winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics. Special Issue of Journal of Retailing was dedicated to his work.

Purpose – Trust is a crucial element of a viable banking industry. In the corporate market though, the characteristics of the relationships between each corporate customer and the bank is a double-sided problem. Both parties might trust the other or choose to behave opportunistically. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/appr...

The investments made in an interfirm relationship have implications for the effectiveness of an agreement. In this study, we investigate whether these investments influence the level of passive opportunism observed in a relationship. Whereas transaction cost theory suggests that firms that make idiosyncratic investments are reluctant to engage in o...

There has obviously been a recent increased concern over unethical business practices. Certainly, in this era of customer-orientation and emphasis on long-term business relationships, unethical salesperson behavior would be a detriment. We extend the model of relationship quality as developed by Crosby, Evans and Cowles (1990) to include ethical sa...

This study investigates how purchase decisions may be influenced by ties linking customer account personnel and sales personnel. Two distinct forms of social contagion—cohesion and structural equivalence—are posited as mechanisms for triggering purchase similarity among customer accounts. We empirically test our hypotheses using field-collected soc...

A growing body of evidence shows an influence of moral philosophies on ethical decision-making. Despite the importance of ethical considerations in sales force selection, the influence of sales managers’ ethical evaluations on hiring practices has received scant attention. This study examines sales managers’ ideological orientations, ethical evalua...

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to examine the fundamental transformation that occurs when channel partners invest in transaction specific assets. Transaction specific assets tend to be more productive than their generalized counterparts, yet these investments expose the investing party to a considerable amount of risk. The advantages of t...

This study utilizes cognitive evaluation theory to assess interorganizational relationships. Sales personnels influence strategies and opportunistic behaviors are cast as antecedent to purchasers intrinsic motivation for the exchange. Influence strategies are classified based upon whether sanctions (medicated influence) or information (non-mediated...

Franchised business networks consist of corporately management and independently owned channel outlets. This analysis employs transaction cost economics and agency theory to explain net ownership shifts between franchisors and franchisees. Hypotheses are developed and a preliminary test is made using secondary data. The results indicate that net co...

Despite a marked increase in the implementation of efforts to raise environmental performance, few marketing research studies have investigated the efficacy of these activities. This study provides an initial examination of governance structures as determinants of environmental effectiveness and other facets of organizational performance. We incorp...

This study investigates how purchase decisions may be influenced by ties linking customer account personnel and sales personnel. Two distinct forms of social contagion—cohesion and structural equivalence—are posited as mechanisms for triggering purchase similarity among customer accounts. We empirically test our hypotheses using field-collected soc...

This study employs social capital theory to examine how a retail buyer's network of industry peers influences retail performance. We propose that performance is enhanced by three network resources –access, referral, and influence – that result from two structural facets of a retail buyer's network: contact diversity and contact position. We test th...

The 2009 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel Prize to Oliver Williamson was not a surprise to scholars in business research. Transaction cost economics (TCE) has been among the most important streams of empirical investigation in business research during the last four decades. TCE has formed, developed and changed...

This article provides an introduction to the Journal of Retailing Special Issue dedicated to Oliver Williamson and transaction cost economics. The paper briefly outlines transaction cost economics contributions to marketing and related social sciences.

In a seminal paper in 1971, and an ensuing book, Markets and Hierarchies, 4 years later, Oliver Williamson developed a detailed theory of the firm in the Coasean spirit. For reasons to be explained below, Williamson claimed that organizing transactions within firms is more desirable when transactions are complex and when physical and human assets a...

Special Issue of Journal of Retailing in Honor of The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009 to Oliver E. Williamson

Opportunism has prompted several orientations to the study of inter-firm interaction. Some research maintains that opportunism is an exogenous construct, whereas other research implicates opportunism as a mediator of the relationships between organizational properties and organizational effectiveness. Yet another stream of research argues that the...

Hvilke fordeler møter bedrifter gjennom samlokalisering? Hva oppnår for eksempel butikker gjennom lokalisering i kjøpesentre? Det har lenge vært kjent at slike næringsklynger (eller «klustere») stimulerer økonomisk vekst gjennom dynamikk, kompetanseoverføring og entreprenørskap. Få studier har imidlertid analysert årsakene til dette. Denne studien...

This study investigates alternative governance forms in the hotel industry. Agency theory maintains that the need for control over service quality, financial risk, and the market environment affect the choice of governance form. Prior agency research emphasizes alternative governance structures that principals employ, given local market conditions,...

The potential to engage in opportunism is a central theme in institutional economics, yet prior research has not quantitatively reviewed the role of opportunism in marketing research. This study uses meta-analytic techniques to synthesize research on opportunism conducted over the last quarter century. The analysis of 183 effect sizes extracted fro...

Diversity among procedures employed to examine marketing activity enhances the likelihood that research contributes to theory and practice. This study provides a conceptual framework of diversity among strategies, measures, and methods employed in marketing research. The framework serves as the basis of a review of 844 studies published in 1986-90...

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether factors that promote trust influence channel selection decisions. We develop a theoretical model implicating alternative factors that promote trust as antecedent to the choice between new and traditional channels. The model augments prior research investigating relational trust with discussion of...

FALSIFICATION CRITERIA APPLIED TO TRANSACTION COST ECONOMICS Transaction cost economics (TCE) has had an important position in empirical research within strategy (David and Han, 2004), marketing (Rindfleisch and Heide, 1997), industrial organization (Holmstrom and Tirole, 1989), institutional evolution (Wallis and North, 1986), financial economics...

Retailers are increasingly adopting strategies in which two or more brands are simultaneously made available for consumption. Although co-branding strategies are increasingly deployed, factors leading to the establishment of these co-branded outlets have not been addressed. In this paper, we characterize retail distribution systems as networks of r...

Agent selection is one of the most challenging decisions faced in the implementation of organizational strategy. Despite the central importance of this decision, limited research has addressed pre-contractual evaluation of agents. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how the examination of a potential partner's network of relationships allevi...

Several theoretical perspectives and numerous experiments illustrate the influence of context on social judgment. Debate ensues, however, when researchers attempt to describe mechanisms that lead persons to contrast current decisions with prior judgments. The purpose of this study is to summarize and qualify prior analyses of the influences of cont...

The study focuses on the choice of alternative governance forms in the service industry. We analyses the choice between traditional independently owned and managed firms and vertical marketing systems like voluntary chains, franchising and vertically integrated chains. Based on agency theory and scale theory we argue that factors such as the need f...

Individuals often differ with respect to their ethical judgments of marketing practices. Personal beliefs are presumably important sources of such differences. This article reports on the development and testing of an original, parsimonious measure of personal moral beliefs based on Forsyth's (1980) taxonomy of ethical ideologies. In contrast to Fo...

Horizontal arrangements are increasingly deployed in organizational networks, yet research has rarely examined the effectiveness of these alliances. The coalition of disparate corporate cultures yields appreciable levels of role stress for people in boundary-spanning positions. Dedicated assets and communication modality are factors that influence...

This study investigates antecedents to financial outcomes in franchised distribution channels. A model is developed which implicates authoritative and normative control as antecedents to franchise revenues. The model is tested with data from two hundred sixteen franchises in the Norwegian distribution system of a multinational oil refiner. The resu...

Customer-oriented selling has been promoted to salespeople as a way to influence the service and quality goals of an organization. However, little is known about the factors influencing the extent to which salespeople actually engage in it. This research examines whether organizational values and role stress influence customer-oriented selling perf...

This study focuses on organizational efforts to constrain ex post trans­ action costs in interorganizational exchange. The theoretical model frames opportunism as a determinant of transaction costs and implicates cooperation and formalization as control structures that alleviate oppor­ tunism. The model also examines whether the proposed theoret...

This study focuses on organizational efforts to constrain ex post transaction costs in interorganizational exchange. The theoretical model frames opportunism as a determinant of transaction costs and implicates cooperation and formalization as control structures that alleviate opportunism. The model also examines whether the proposed theoretical re...

A substantial body of research employs agency theory and transaction costs analysis to explain ownership decisions in distribution channels. Agency theory identifies factors that prompt firms to favor behavior-based contracting over outcome-based agreements. Transaction cost economics is a complementary framework which maintains that the organizati...

This paper presents a model of brand equity for business markets. It is argued that the potential benefits of branding and brand equity development have been neglected in business markets and that a general model and stream of relevant empirical research could be useful to managers in business markets depending on the situational nature of their ma...

A paradigm shift within marketing has focused attention on the relational end of the exchange continuum where dependence justifies relationship behavior and drives outcomes. Previous research, however, ignores the possibility that attitudes toward dependence might also be responsible for relational and economic outcomes. We propose that the impact...

The authors demonstrate that ethical judgments can be biased when previous judgments serve as a point of reference against which a current situation is judged. Scenarios describing ethical or unethical sales practices were used in an experiment to prime subjects who subsequently rated the ethics of an ethically ambiguous target scenario. The target...

Douglas Coupland's book, Generation X, was used as the basis for developing a scale measuring attitudes associated with a generation of people currently in their mid-20s (i.e., Generation X). Although much anecdotal evidence has been presented about this group, published research has not addressed measures of their attitudes. The scale reported her...

The authors present a model that suggests that integration between marketing and research and development (R&D), managerial controls, and relational norms influences new product success. The model is tested with a sample of 115 engineers and marketing personnel involved in 19 new product projects for a multinational computer manufacturer. The resul...

The authors present a model that suggests that integration between marketing and research and development (R&D), managerial controls, and relational norms influences new product success. The model is tested with a sample of 115 engineers and marketing personnel involved in 19 new product projects for a multinational computer manufacturer. The resul...

Human judgment is susceptible to contextual biases, yet most ethical models in marketing do not indicate how context influences decision making. The authors illustrate how ethical judgments of marketing practices can be influenced by contextually induced frames of reference. Scenarios describing ethical or unethical marketing practices are used in...

This study presents a two-phase model of interfirm exchange in the logistical supply industry. The first phase uses transaction cost analysis to identify conditions leading to market-based transactions, unilateral agreements, and bilateral alliances. The second phase illustrates how formal controls and relational norms yield performance in market,...

This study investigates antecedents and consequences of interpersonal trust in new and mature market economies. The authors present a model which suggests that interpersonal trust emerges as a consequence of the legal environment and the extent of interfirm managerial control. The model also suggests that interpersonal trust and managerial controls...

This manuscript uses transaction cost analysis and contingency theory to present a model of interfirm relationship management. The conceptual model maintains that opportunism and effectiveness emerge through the interaction of specific assets and technological uncertainty with formalization and participation. The model is tested in working relation...

Franchised business networks consist of corporately managed and independent owned channel outlets. This analysis employs transaction cost economics and, agency theory to explain net ownership shifts between franchisor and franchisees. Hypotheses 'are developed and a preliminary test is made using secondary data. The results indicate that net conver...

This study utilizes agency theory to investigate contractual decisions among Norwegian oil retailers. Scandinavian oil refiners coordinate retail operations through three contractual forms: corporately-owned and operated facilities, corporately owned/franchisee-operated outlets, and franchisee-owned and operated service stations. The authors outlin...

Prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) suggests a number of subjective biases to which human judgment is prone (such as the framing effect). Economic consequences of such biases have received ample attention; however, potentially important ethical implications have been neglected. We conducted an experiment in which 81 M.B.A. students were as...

The political economy paradigm is a unifying framework that has fostered a richer understanding of distribution systems. This essay outlines theoretical developments and empirical trends within the internal polity and economy of marketing channels. Directions for research are outlined.

The policital economy paradigm is a unifying framework that has fostered a richer understanding of distribution systems. Dahlstrom and Dwyer (1992) recently outlined theoretical developments and empirical trends within the internal polity and economy of marketing channels. In this follow-up article a network approach supports the development of ill...

This study utilizes transaction cost economics to assess changes in the level of vertical integration in distribution channels. Utilizing time series data from the Norwegian oil industry, the authors find that small numbers bargaining and frequency are associated with higher levels of integration.

This paper outlines bilateral strategic position as a framework from which to assess MNC-host country relations. Strategic position is implicated as a determinant of host country policy and MNC strategy. A case description of the Norwegian oil industry is offered to illustrate the interaction of investment strategy and governmental policy.

This article identifies two categories of approaches to international marketing, those that are related to the content (parametric approaches) and those that refer to the process (operational approaches). Parametric approaches are concerned with effectiveness issues, while operational approaches address the efficiency of one's research. Parametric...

provided support for this study. The authors are listed alphabetically and contributed equally to this research. The authors thank Nils Risholm for developing a database with information about 650 Norwegian hotels.