Manufacturer Power Exercise, Conflict And Cooperation: The Moderating Effect Of Network Structure Of Dealer Group

With more and more awareness of the nature of the channel system, the research of marketing channels developed and formed a mature theoretical system. One theory was developed in the early 20th century, which is a channel structure theory oriented by the "economic" nature of channel system. In the late 1960s, another channel behavior theory which guided by the "social" nature of channel system was developed. With the development of social network theory, the "network" nature of channel system already gives us more space to develop a new theory. However, the main channel behavior theory is still based on binary analysis paradigm; in other words, the basic analysis unit is two channel members. To analyze the impact of other channel members, the traditional binary analysis paradigm has to be break. This marketing channel research is just based on social network theory, and makes some useful exploration for the extension from the binary analysis paradigm to the network analysis.From the research papers review, we find the channel behavior papers based on social network theory are only a little, for example, only Antia and Frazier (2001), Yin H.J. (2008) and Zhang C. (2010) concerned the impact of network structure variables, and no empirical research paper was found which was about the role of network structure variables in B2B channels. On the basis of above research, this thesis is based on the social network theory, introduces two important variables in social network theory, network density and network centralization, and in refer to the operations in Antia and Frazier(2001), checks the regulation of dealer group's network structure variables to the manufacturers" channel power's application, conflict and cooperation.The questionnaire method in empirical research is applied in this study. Before the formal investigation, general managers, marketing managers and purchasing managers from 14 companies'(including manufactures, distributors and retailers) was deep interviewed. A professional market research company was commissioned for the formal investigation. Samples were from Guangzhou, Xi'an. Zhengzhou, Shenyang and Dalian. Targets covered the sales and marketing employees and managers in manufactures. This survey received 278 valid questionnaires.According to the theoretical framework, some hypothesis to be tested was made. Through multi-level regression analysis, the regulation of the above network structure variables was checked. The result are as following:1. For the regulation of dealer's network density:the density will strengthen the negative correlation between the coercive powers of manufacture and cooperation, and have a significant positive regulation between the non-coercive power of manufacture and cooperation. Network density has no regulation for relationship between the power of manufacture and conflict.2. For the regulation of the dealer's network centralization:network centralization has a significant positive regulation for the negative correlation between the coercive power of manufacture and cooperation. Network has no significant regulation for the positive correlation between the coercive power of manufacture and cooperation. Network centralization has a significant negative regulation for the positive correlation between the coercive power of manufacture and conflict. Network centralization has a significant negative regulation for the relationship of the non-coercive power of manufacture and conflict.This thesis has two theoretical contributions:first, introducing two social network structural variables-the network density and network centralization to channel power theory, implementing social network analysis method to analyze the channel behavior, breaking the binary analysis paradigm in the channel behavior research, expanding analysis methods in this field. Second, in the operation style, according to the network prospect theory and operation style of authority in this field, this thesis measures the network structure variables from the key information people's subject perception, achieves the goal to put the network structure variables into research framework, and provides some experience for the future study.