Study On The Institutions And Performance Of Interfirm Governance

Since the 1970's, with the deeper development of economic globalization and network economy, the inter-firm organization shows strong momentum increasingly in business running , and also become one of the most typical trends in industrial organization. For this phenomenon, the mainstream theoretical studies always pay attention to and emphasize its efficiency advantage of synthesizing hierarchy and spot market .However, the practical situation is not so optimistic. In fact, although many enterprises have obtained positive effects including reducing cost ,inducing innovation, enhancing flexibility and so on by using interfirm organization successfully, but there are many other interfirm cooperation end with failure for given target ,even opposite to expectations. That means,on individual level,different firms have obtained different performance by using inter-firm organization. It also means that, in general,the advantage of interfirm organization compared to both hierarchy and spot market is only potential ,and need not be realized as taking it for granted. The interfirm organization may also fail and the failure has universality. Therefore, exploring and revealing causes of this performance difference to improve interfirm organization's efficiency and successful transition of production organization model will have important theoretical and realistic significance.Based on the above-mentioned research purpose and on the premise of the firm heterogeneity, this thesis tries to explain different performance of interfirm governance by using the theory of the New Institutional Economics and competence comprehensively. Following the research thoughts of governance institution, governance competence and governance performance, the third chapter discusses the necessity of interfirm governance and the function of governance institution,then constructs a discussion frame and multi-dimension characterization system based on fomal contract and informal relationship ,and proposes core hypothesis of this thesis ; the forth chapter demonstrates in detail the mechanisms that governance institution influence governance performance using governance competence as intermediate variable. These demonstrations also have been translated to a series of operationalizational hypothesizes , conceptual model and hypothesis tree; the fifth chapter describes the empirical research method and data sources; the sixth chapter tests the conceptual model and hypothesizes mainly by structural equation modelling; the seventh chapter summarize research conclusion, applicability and limitation, research progress and possible further research topic.The research conclusion and main points of this thesis can summarized as follows: (1) Enterprises in the samples show significant difference in inter-firm governance institutions which are reflected on six dimensions of preciseness , adaptablity , balance, intensity, duration and symmetry, but firms pay more attention to the relational governance in general;(2)The difference of interfirm governance institutions influence the three dimensions of governance competence, and finally influence the governance performance; (3) Firms can improve interfirm governance compentence through more reasonable institutions which will result in better performance,but those firms may turn to other organizational form if they can not improve the interfirm governance institutions within a short term; (4) In any way we emphasize the active role of communication, trust and other relational governance ways, formal contract would be base of effective interfirm cooperation. But we must understand the contract more comprehensively beyond the parochial perspective of controlling opportunism. The interfirm contract also has the function similar to intraorganizational plan, guidance and coordination, and designing contract and implementation themselves can be a kind of platform for learning and co-adaptation; (5) Formal contract and relational governance function as complements not substitutes. Through learning and comprehensive using formal contract and relational governance, enterprises will refine and optimize contract, and also improve the quality of relational governance. These firms will acquire higher governance performance and competitive advantage than other firms under the same condition.Compared to other related research, this dissertation's innovative contribution can be generalized as a whole that is it injects the research level into the micro details,path and performance of inter-firm governance, and explains the different governance performance from the perspective combinining institutionalism with competence, and also provides operational suggestions for improving the interfirm governance performance. That can be classified into three points in detail: (1) constructs a discussion frame and multi-dimension characterization system based on fomal contract and informal relationship ,which provides both qualitative and quantitative research means for further study on interfirm organization and its governance from institution perspective; (2) puts forward the concept of interfirm governance competence ,and constructs its three discussion dimensions based on related literatures, which to some extent provides reference for application of the theory of competence in interfirm governance's studies;(3) constructs a discussion model of institution-competence-performance for inter-firm governance, which takes a preliminary attempt for combining the new institutional economics with competence theory in discussing industrial organization. It provides relatively new discussion method and viewpoints for explaining the different governance performance ,and improving the interfirm governance performance as well.