The Impact of Environmental Uncertainty and Asset Specificity on the Degree of Buyer-Supplier Commitment

Abstract

When manufacturers purchase products from suppliers, the types of relationships they establish may depend on many factors. These relationships can range from formalized, extensive contractual obligations to discrete individual purchases. This study investigates the potential determinants of where on this continuum of commitment the relationship lies. These determinants include uncertainty in both the supplier market and the buyer's customer market, the investment in transaction specific assets by both buyer and supplier, and the investment in product specific assets. Results indicate that market diversity, supplier concentration, investment in product specific assets, and the supplier's investment in transaction specific assets are potential reasons for higher levels of buyer-supplier commitment.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 20 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.