Research On Channel Contract Governance:Contract Design,Structure Of Governance And Perceived Fairness

In the modern commercial society,the long-term,stable cooperative relationship between channel manufactures and distributors is not only about whether the exchange is efficient,but also provides an important support for manufactures to better cope with market competition,quickly respond to market demand changes and obtain excess profits.However,such problems as cross-regional cross-shipment of distributors,non-standard channel management,conflicts,and unsound market rules in channels bring great challenges to cooperation.Therefore,how to effectively coordinate and governance channel relationships is a crucial issue.In the business field,contract is widely used as a very important governance mechanism to maintain the channel cooperation relationship.However,as the two parties in the channel cooperation is independent individuals,which pursuing the maximization of their own interests,the contractual relationship will become untenable.Among them,the improper contract design of the manufacturer,the maladjustment of the governance structure leads to the low efficiency of cooperation,and the lack of the distributors' perception of the fairness of cooperation become the important factors leading to the breakdown of channel relationship in the process of contract governance.Therefore,in the process of implementing contract governance,how to design contracts and coordinate the structural relationship with other governance mechanisms to improve the fairness perception and channel performance is of great importance to both researchers and managers.Based on Transaction Cost theory,Regulatory Focus theory and Social Exchange theory and Social Comparison theory,this research,around contractual governance research subject,constructed theoretical models of contract design,structure of channel governance and distributors' perception of fairness respectively.The corresponding hypothesis were proposed and tested by using empirical research method.And finally this research got the following conclusions:First,based on the Transaction Cost theory and Regulatory Focus theory,this study divided contract into two types from the perspective of contract content design,namely,promotion and prevention contract,and expounds the differences between the two types of contract design in the effect of channel governance.Among them,preventive contract significantly improves channel performance and has a significant positive effect on opportunistic behavior.The promotion contract not only improves the channel performance,but also has a strong inhibiting effect on opportunistic behavior.However,in the case of highly uncertainty of market environment,the governance effectiveness of promotion contract will be greatly affected,which is not only reflected in the decline of the inhibition of opportunistic behavior,but also in the improvement of channel performance.Second,this study further combines the Social Exchange theory,selects the partner selection method of channel relationship establishment as the situational factor,and clarifies the changing relationship between prevention contract and promotion contract and the joint use of relational governance respectively on the efficiency of channel cooperation.Specifically,in the relationship established between through market selection,when prevention contract and relational governance are jointly used,the effect on the cooperation efficiency is shown as a substituted relationship.The combined use of promotion contracts and relational governance presents a complement relationship.However,in the context of relationship referral,the effect of the joint use of prevention contract and relational governance on the efficiency of cooperation shows a complementrelationship,and the joint use of both can further promote the efficiency of channel cooperation.Third,this study,in combination with the Social Comparison theory,extends the perspective of analysis from the dual relationship to the level of channel network,and reveals the mechanism and path of the effect of contract governance on the distributors' perception of fairness.The study found that the effect of preventive contract on the distributors' distribution fairness mainly comes from the procedure fairness in the process of cooperation between the two sides,while the influence of the promotion contract on the distributor's distribution fairness is mainly compared with other members of the channel network,which makes distributors more likely to feel that their earnings are unfairly treated,and in the high-density channel network,this influence is more significant.The innovation of this research is as follows:First of all,on the basis of existing achievements,this study introduce Regulatory Focus theory and make a nuanced analysis of the governance effect of prevention and promotion contract,and defines boundary condition of the two kinds of contract,which helps to compensate for the shortcomings of existing studies,and further enrich the theory research of contract management.Second,by combining social exchange theory,this study reveals the dynamic effect of contract and relational governance,providing a new explanation to the research of channel governance structure.The findings also help to compensate for the research that has yet to explore,and to get a better synergistic effect of contractural and relational governance in the channel cooperation.Finally,this study discusses the mechanism and influence path of contract governance on channel members' perceived fairness,which extends the research perspective from the dual relationship to the network level,so as to expand the research perspective of contract governance and perceived fairness,and provide reference for future research.