零售商的特殊投資對供應商的投機主義之雙元效果：干擾變數的探討

Two Effects of the Retailer’s Specific Investments on the Supplier’s Opportunism: The Exploration of Moderators

公司常對合作關係投入特殊投資，然而這些投資不容易轉換，亦即當合作關係瓦解之後，難以移轉他用。過去的研究強調零售商如果投資愈多的特殊投資，將愈可能被供應商所控制並加以剝削，這就是特殊投資所造成的剝削效果。不過僅以剝削效果來說明特殊投資對合作關係所產生的影響，似乎無法說明特殊投資所造成的正面影響部分，例如因這些投資促進了與合作廠商在作業上的效率與降低成本，創造價值與創造聯合競爭優勢，進而強化了合作的關係。因此，本研究旨在探討特殊投資是否會對投機主義產生影響，除了說明剝削效果之外，亦加入連結效果的說明，以彌補特殊投資對投機主義影響的理論缺口。本研究在零售商與供應商往來關係的情境下，進行一個實證研究，以瞭解零售商的特殊投資所產生的剝削效果與連結效果對於供應商投機主義的相反影響，剝削效果會助長投機主義，而連結效果會抑制投機主義，因此零售商的特殊投資是否會引起供應商的投機主義，就在於特殊投資所產生的剝削效果與連結效果何者較強。進一步而言，本研究的主要目的就在於瞭解當供應商面對零售商的特殊投資時，在何種情況下想去剝削零售商，又在何種情況下反而有助關係的連結。本研究共提出五個干擾變數來說明此情況：供應商對零售商的信任程度、零售商對供應商的重要程度、資訊不對稱的程度、供應商的聲望高低、供應商的關係投資程度。本研究以台灣全省的零售商為研究母體，以立意抽樣的方式取得研究樣本，並以人員訪問調查法收集零售商對其供應商的知覺之資料，共收集了404 份有效問卷，構念衡量通過信度與效度的檢測之後，再以層級干擾迴歸進行假說檢定分析。本研究的實證結果指出，零售商的特殊投資是否會引起供應商的投機主義，和本研究提出的五大干擾變數有關，零售商的特殊投資會產生供應商投機（剝削效果）的情況是：供應商對零售商具有低度的信任、零售商對供應商較不重要時、零售商與供應商之間資訊不對稱的程度越高時、供應商的聲望低時、供應商對合作關係的投資較低時；相反的，零售商的特殊投資不會產生供應商投機（連結效果）的情況是：供應商對零售商具有高度的信任、零售商對供應商較重要時、零售商與供應商之間資訊不對稱的程度越低時、供應商的聲望高時、供應商對合作關係的投資較高時。

Companies often make specific investments in the cooperative relationship. However, such investments cannot be easily transferred. Specifically, if the cooperative relationship is disrupted, those investments are hard to be redeployed in other relationships. Previous research supposed that if retailers make more specific investments, they have more possibility to be controlled and be exploited by suppliers. That is the expropriation effect caused by specific investments. However, if we only use the expropriation effect to describe the effect of specific investments on the cooperative relationships, it is hard to describe the positive benefits which specific investments produce, e.g., promoting operational efficiency, reducing cost, creating value, creating joint competitive advantage, and then enhancing the cooperative relationships. Therefore, this study not only explores the expropriation effect, but also explores the bonding effect in order to fill up the gap. This study conducts an empirical study in the context of retailer-supplier relationship to understand there is an opposite influence of the expropriation effect and bonding effect of the retailer’s investments on the supplier’s opportunism. The expropriation effect can increase opportunism and the bonding effect can inhibit opportunism. Therefore, whether specific investments of the retailer will produce the supplier’s opportunism is decided by which one is more significant for either the expropriation effect or bonding effect caused by specific investments. Specifically, the major purpose of this study is to understand, when suppliers face the retailers’ specific investments, under what kinds of situations, suppliers will expropriate the retailers, otherwise, and suppliers will feel the promotion of their relationship. This study totally proposes five moderators to explain the effect of the retailer’s specific investments on the supplier’s opportunism. The five moderators are the level of trust of suppliers to retailers, the level of importance of retailers to suppliers, the level of information asymmetry, the level of reputation of suppliers, the level of relationship investments of suppliers. The population of this study is the retailers in Taiwan. The samples are acquired through the purposive sampling method. The data about the perceptions of retailers to suppliers are collected through personal interviews. This study collects 404 copies of valid questionnaires in all. After construct measures pass the test of reliability and validity, then, this study uses the hierarchical moderator regression analysis to test the hypotheses. The empirical results of this study indicate that the five moderators this study proposed moderate the effect of specific investments of the retailer on the supplier’s opportunism. The situations of which the retailer’s specific investments produce the supplier’s opportunism (expropriation effect) are low trust of the supplier to the retailer, low importance of the retailer to the supplier, high information asymmetry between the retailer and the supplier, low reputation of the supplier, and low investments of the supplier to the cooperative relationship. On the other hand, the situations of which the retailer’s specific investments do not produce the supplier’s opportunism (bonding effect) are high trust of the supplier to the retailer, high importance of the retailer to the supplier, low information asymmetry between the retailer and the supplier, high reputation of the supplier, and high investments of the supplier to the cooperative relationship.