Study On Cooperative Relationship And Governance Mechanism Of “Alliance Of Agriculture And Supermarkets” Supply Chain

From the perspective of people's livelihood,the circulation of agricultural products not only affects the “money bag” of farmers,but also relates to the “vegetable basket” of consumers,which plays an important role in regulating the income of farmers and improving the consumption of urban and rural residents.Before 2008,a series of major issues such as “selling hard to buy expensive”,frequent quality and safety incidents of agricultural products,and large loss of fresh agricultural products flowed through the circulation channels of agricultural products,accelerating a modern,efficient and innovative “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain model emerged at the historic moment,which greatly promoted the transformation of China's agricultural product supply chain,and caused strong concern in the theoretical and practical circles.From a macro perspective,the “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain,as a product of agricultural supply-side structure optimization and reform,has been in operation for nearly 10 years since the pilot in 2008.In the future,the “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” model is still relatively great improvement.Therefore,the dynamic mechanism behind its development,especially the internal governance structure arrangement,is a problem worthy of our attention.From the micro level,there are two common economic phenomena in the actual implementation level of “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets”: Firstly,some cooperation models have achieved success,and have remained the Stable,coordinated and synergistic partnership in a long-term and uncertain transaction environment;the second is that some cooperation models are not satisfied with the cooperation or terminate the contract in advance or both parties are against the court.Most scholars focus on external issues,rarely cut into and study the above issues from the perspective of internal institutional arrangements.In the “real world” where the transaction cost is positive,both economic phenomena are closely related to the “efficiency meaning” caused by the institutional arrangement,that is,the governance mechanism.In fact,effective governance can motivate both parties to create value and bring good performance.In reality,well-run alliance organizations are inseparable from the use of matching governance mechanisms.For the governance mechanism,it can be at a certain point,that is,at the static level,or in a constantly changing state,that is a dynamic level.Therefore,how does the organizational performance difference of the “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain under the static level explain from the dimension of the governance mechanism? What is the internal relationship between the continuous cooperation and governance mechanism of the “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain organization under the dynamic level? These core issues are all must be answered in this article.Focusing on the above problems,this paper takes the governance mechanism as the basic entry point,and uses the transaction cost theory,relational contract theory,and transaction relationship life cycle theory to comprehensively study the governance and cooperation of “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets”.Firstly,on the basis of the historical evolution of the “Farmer-Supermarket Direct Purchase” supply chain cooperation relationship,the dynamic mechanism of supply chain organization is elaborated from the perspectives of “rational system” and “natural system”,focusing on tthe intrinsic link between the historical evolution of partnerships and governance structures.Secondly,a theoretical model based on transaction characteristics,governance mechanism and alliance performance is constructed from the static level,and the theoretical hypothesis is empirically tested by using the field research data.Thirdly,from the dynamic level,the combination of the mobilization model and the case analysis is used to test the interaction process,substitution mechanism and complementary mechanism of relationship governance,contract governance at different stages.Finally,the main research conclusions are drawn and policy implications are presented.The main findings of the study are as follows:(1)From a macro level,the cooperation relationship of “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain,as a system innovation with the characteristics of the times,has achieved good results in business practice after the stable development of three different stages.In addition to the accelerated promotion of exogenous factors such as consumer preferences,macro policy changes,and technological advances,the most important point is that the hybrid governance structure based on the combination of governance costs,production costs,and risk costs is the essence of sustainable development of the “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain organization.(2)From a micro level,the governance mechanism framework of the “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain can be examined from the two dimensions of contract governance and relationship governance.In the context of industry-specific experience,finding the components of contract governance and relationship governance have a positive impact on alliance performance.Based on the relevant research results and field interviews,the measurement tables of contract governance and relationship governance were designed,and finally the test data was tested.Among them,Contract governance consists of the inclusiveness of contracts and the adaptability of contracts;relational governance consists of three key relationship norms of joint action,trust and reciprocity.(3)From a static perspective,contract governance and relationship governance have a significant positive impact on alliance performance in the “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain.For the supermarket,the contract management with the farmers,the two sides use the contract to coordinate the transaction relationship,which is conducive to the improvement of the alliance performance.At the same time,it is imperative to strengthen the formation and cultivation of the relationship in farmers.Contract governance and relationship governance play an important intermediary role in the relationship between some variables of transaction characteristics(including supermarket asset specificity and transaction frequency)and alliance performance,and the intermediary role of relationship governance is generally greater than the intermediary role of contract governance.In the “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain,the three factors of transaction characteristics,the type of cooperation relationship,the role of government and other factors have an important impact on the choice of governance mechanism.Therefore,for supermarkets,how to choose an appropriate governance mechanism is an important issue in the process of cooperation with partners.(4)From a dynamic perspective,in the “real world” of agricultural product transaction,the governance mechanism between supermarkets and partners is dynamically adjusted at different stages with changes in the three characteristics of transaction characteristics,and thus presents “high contracts governance,low relationship governance”,“intermediate contracts governance,intermediate relationship governance”,“low contract governance,high relationship governance”.Contract governance and relationship governance are based on their respective transaction characteristics and advantages,and they present this strong and weak relationship in the life cycle of the partnership,which can be supplemented and used interchangeably.The substitution of governance mechanism means that supermarkets and transaction partners can choose lower governance costs in order to obtain more governance benefits when they cooperate.The complementarity of governance mechanisms indicates that institutional arrangements between organizations can be consistent to achieve the best governance effect.This article has been innovating in three areas:(1)Most scholars' research on the relationship of “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain mainly focuses on external level,but lacks the research on the institutional arrangement under the internal organization of the supply chain,especially the governance mechanism.Emphasis is placed on answering the question of “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain cooperation and governance.In theory,it can enhance the explanatory power of agricultural product supply chain as an inter-organizational cooperative organization in transaction behavior,and enrich the research on intermediate organization theory.In addition,the exploration of the structural dimensions of the governance mechanism,especially the relationship specification “how to choose” is an academic issue that needs to be combined with specific industries and typical situations.It is a practical research content to mine and extract the key relationship specifications that have an important impact on alliance performance under the context of “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets”.This paper makes an exploratory study on this issue from the two dimensions of internal rules and external behavior.(2)The current research about the governance of intermediate-type organizational cooperation mainly uses static cross-section data and the mainstream paradigm of interdisciplinary logic argumentation to demonstrate.However,cooperation relationship “the real-world” has both macro and micro levels,and it is a process of static and dynamic alternating.Therefore,constructing a research perspective from macro to micro,from static to dynamic to strengthen theoretical and empirical research on the cooperation and governance of agricultural product supply chain can promote the improvement of the theoretical analysis framework of governance mechanisms and strengthen the practical interpretation of transaction behavior.(3)The discussion on the cooperation and governance of the “alliance of agriculture and supermarkets” supply chain includes both case studies and comprehensive application of various models such as Williamson heuristic model,structural equation model,mediation effect model and mobilization model.It avoids the simplification of the methodology of similar research,and reflects the diversification and creativity of the application of methods.