Abstract:

The application of information technology (IT) in marketing channels provides firms with better conditions for channel governance. However, the analysis on the various effects of firm’s IT capability is not sufficient. In this paper, we propose and test the moderating effect of firm’s IT capability on the relationship between interfirm relationship quality and relational governance, operationalized as joint planning and joint problem solving, by collecting survey data and analyzing the data. The results confirm this moderating effect: interfirm relationship quality positively affects a firm to use both joint planning mechanism and joint problem solving mechanism, while the firm’s IT capability positively moderates the relationship between interfirm relationship quality and the firm’s use of the two mechanisms. In addition, we also find that joint problem solving mechanism would decrease the partner’s opportunism, but the effect of joint planning mechanism on the partner’s opportunism is not significant.

Key words: IT capability, Relational governance, Relationship governance mechanism, Marketing channel, Opportunism