New Frontiers in Addressing Governance Challenges in Inter-Organizational Relationships
(A2025-124536)

AUTHORS

Elham Ghazimatin, University of Stavanger; Stefan Wuyts, Penn State University; Sourav Ray, University of Guelph, Lang School of Business and Economics; PEREN OZTURAN, Copenhagen Business School

ABSTRACT

The governance of interorganizational relationships (IORs) refers to the frameworks, structures, and mechanisms that organizations employ to manage their interactions and collaborations with other firms effectively and efficiently. It includes both formal mechanisms, such as contracts, and informal mechanisms, such as norms and trust, which guide the behavior of the involved firms. Effective governance plays a crucial role in mitigating conflicts, aligning interests, and fostering cooperation, coordination, and adaptation among a diverse set of firms, especially in complex and uncertain environments. This special session features four presentations focused on the governance of a broad range of inter-organizational relationships, including licensing, marketing channels (franchising), circular business models, and temporary organizations. The four studies address critical challenges that can jeopardize the efficiency and effectiveness of inter-organizational collaborations across a broad range of contexts and offer empirically validated solutions in response. The session aims to advance our understanding of emerging topics in B2B marketing, stimulate engaging discussions around the novel insights, and outline opportunities for future research. The session participants consist of B2B marketing scholars from five countries across three continents (U.S., Canada, Australia, Denmark, and Norway). In the first presentation, AlQadeeri, Wuyts, and Mooi examine technology transfer between firms in technology-intensive markets through licensing agreements. Using a unique dataset of 247 licensing agreements, they examine when and how various pricing structures – upfront fees, milestone payments, and royalty rates – influence the financial value firms derive from these agreements. In the second presentation, Eshghi and Ray examine conflicts in marketing channels, which have both short-term impact on efficiency and long-term effects on firm performance. Drawing on data from 925 franchisors, they adopt an agency theory perspective to study the conflicts between franchisors and franchisees and examine how firms efficiently respond and adapt to these challenges ex-post. Third, Özturan and de Jong take a Circular Economy (CE) perspective, providing both quantitative and qualitative evidence to highlight the challenges and benefits firms face in implementing the triple bottom line approach. Their research contributes to inter-organizational marketing by examining how circular thinking reshapes core assumptions of governance theories, such as Transaction Cost Economics and Resource Dependency Theory. Fourth, Mooi, Ghazimatin, and Heide present a study on temporary organizations, or so-called projects, showing that while cost overruns are typically viewed negatively, they can generate customer benefits under certain conditions. Using data from 503 construction projects, they provide strong empirical support for their findings.