When and How Does Supplier Opportunism Matter for Small Retailers' Channel Relationships with the Suppliers?

Determinants of opportunism in Uganda’s manufacturing sector:a comparison of two sectors

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model investigating the impact of three constructs, environmental uncertainty, power asymmetry and information sharing on opportunism engagement in exchange relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from procurement or sales managers of 99 manufacturing firms in Kampala, Uganda’s capital using a cross-sectional survey. Hypotheses were tested in both the agricultural and non-agricultural manufacturing sectors using multiple regression runs in the SPSS software.

Findings

Environmental uncertainty increases opportunism in the agricultural sector whilst power asymmetry increases opportunism in the non-agricultural sector. Across both sectors, information sharing does not have a significant impact on opportunism.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of opportunism in a developing country context by highlighting the contextual factors within the agricultural and non-agricultural manufacturing sectors that influence opportunism engagement under conditions of environmental uncertainty, power asymmetry and information sharing. This paper presents implications for practice and policy to minimise opportunism with the goal of enhancing the participation of Ugandan manufacturing firms in global supply chains.

How does open innovation affect firms’ innovative performance

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the direct effects of open innovation (OI) on firms’ innovative performance, and to examine the moderating effects of knowledge attributes, including knowledge distance, knowledge embeddedness and partner opportunism on this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey data of 247 samples from China were used to test the proposed model through hierarchical regression analysis.

Findings

The findings indicate that the dimensions of OI are positively related to innovative performance. The results also reveal that knowledge distance positively moderates the relationship between inbound OI and innovative performance, whereas knowledge embeddedness negatively affects that relationship. Knowledge embeddedness negatively affects the relationship between inbound OI and innovative performance, whereas knowledge distance positively moderates that relationship. Thus, a new finding is proposed that knowledge attributes could align effectively with specific OI type to achieve superior innovation outcomes. In addition, the empirical results suggest that partner opportunism plays a negative moderating role on the relationship between outbound OI and innovative performance.

Originality/value

The proposed view that a firm’s innovation outputs will be superior when its knowledge attributes effectively align with OI enriches studies of the OI context and expands the literature of both the resource-based view and the knowledge-based view. Furthermore, this study provides insights into how OI benefits can be influenced by external contexts from the perspective of partners’ opportunistic behaviour.