The Effect Of Contractual And Relational Governance On Opportunism Under Uncertainty:A Meta-Analysis

With the development of economic globalization,market competition becomes increasingly fierce.In order to gain competitive advantage,enterprises began to seek various forms of cross-organizational cooperation.At that time,cross-organizational cooperation such as strategic alliances,joint ventures and outsourcing became very common.But while these forms of cross-organizational collaboration are popular,they expose partners to opportunistic threats and often end in failure.Therefore,exploring the governance mechanism that can effectively inhibit the opportunistic behavior of partners has become the core of cross-organizational relationship management.Contractual governance and relational governance are two major governance mechanisms to deal with opportunism.However,there are still many disputes on the effectiveness of these two governance mechanisms to curb opportunism.In particular,a large number of studies have revealed quite different results regarding the extent to which contractual governance and relational governance can curb opportunism and their relative effectiveness.This paper holds that one of the key reasons for the existence of disputes is that the uncertainty,which is the boundary condition of contractual governance and relational governance,has not been fully considered.Therefore,it is necessary to study the moderating effect of uncertainty.This paper discusses the change of the effectiveness of contractual governance and relational governance on opportunism under different levels of behavior and environmental uncertainty.Through the meta-analysis of 77 empirical literatures,this paper draws the following conclusions:with the increase of the level of behavioral uncertainty,the effectiveness of contractual governance and relational governance on opportunism will both increase.As the level of environmental uncertainty increases,the effectiveness of relational governance on opportunism will increase,while the effect of contractual governance will not change significantly.In addition,this paper also analyzes the relative effectiveness of contract governance and relationship governance,and draws the conclusion that,in general,relational governance is more effective in curbing opportunism than contractual governance,but when the level of behavioral uncertainty is low,there is no significant difference between the two.This study reveals that the role of contractual governance and relationsal governance in curbing opportunism is not invariable,but will change with uncertainty,which has practical significance for the choice of governance mechanism by both parties of cross-organizational cooperation.