Research On The Influence Of Reference Group On The Investment Of Farmer’s Relationship-specific Assets

Recently,the market environment has become more volatile,the competition among enterprises has evolved from individual enterprises to relational networks.Enterprises can hardly survive in the fierce market competition by themselves.Cooperation between agricultural and animal husbandry enterprises and farmers is undoubtedly an important way to deal with this crisis.Therefore,how to establish a good cooperative relationship and how to encourage farmers to invest in relationship-specific assets has become hot topics in current theoretical research.The research shows that partner trust and firm goodwill are the two main incentives to invest in relationship-specific assets.However,as farmers who have been in the "small circle" for a long time,it is difficult to directly perceive and obtain information from the outside world.Instead,they praise the group within the circle and take it as a reference.Therefore,this paper is devoted to study the mechanism of the reference group on the relationship specific asset investment.Based on SOR theory,this paper constructed a model with reference group as independent variable,relational-specific asset investment as dependent variable,perceived value as intermediate path,and perceived risk as boundary condition.232 questionnaires were obtained from farmers participated in the cooperation of pig generation rearing.SPSS22.0was used analyze the collected questionnaire data.Results indicate that:(1)The reference group and its dimensions have significant positive impacts on farmers’ relational-specific asset investment;(2)Perceived value plays a mediating role in the relationship between the reference group and farmers;(3)Perceived risk plays a regulatory role,which will affect the relationship between reference group and relationship specific asset investment.Finally,we recommend:(1)enterprises should choose effective market entry and project communication mode according to the characteristics of the group;(2)Enterprises should attach importance to farmers’ evaluation and perception of projects or products;(3)Enterprises should establish a risk guarantee mechanism to reduce farmers’ risks.We hope that this study can help agricultural and animal husbandry enterprises establish a good cooperative relationship with farmers.