Interorganizational governance response strategies to active and passive ex post opportunism: Increased understanding via value-based boundary constraints

This dissertation investigates the governance responses of buyer firms to active and passive ex post opportunism by their supplier partners. The potential for ex post opportunism in an interorganizational relationship is an assumption of transaction cost economics, and this dissertation examines buyer firms' tolerance of active and passive ex post opportunism. In addition, the dissertation examines the role of the value (both economic value and strategic value) of the interorganizational relationship as a safeguard to preserve the relationship when active and passive ex post opportunism accumulate.; The dissertation examines the accumulation of active and passive ex post opportunism in an interorganizational buyer-supplier relationship and the argument is made that ceteris paribus, firms will tolerate a greater accumulation of passive ex post opportunism as opposed to active ex post opportunism before exiting the relationship. In addition, it is argued that in interorganizational buyer-supplier relationships where there is high strategic value for the receiving party of the ex post opportunism, when the receiving party of the ex post opportunism exits the relationship they will exit via vertical integration.; The results of the study indicate support for the hypothesized greater tolerance of the accumulation of passive ex post opportunism than active ex post opportunism. In addition, results also demonstrate that when there is high economic value and high strategic value derived from the relationship by the receiving party of the active or passive ex post opportunism, then this party will tolerate a greater accumulation of the active or passive ex post opportunism than when there is low economic value and low strategic value. However, the results do not find support for the hypothesized exit via vertical integration when strategic value is high, instead indicating that firms exit via reverting to market exchange irrespective the level of economic value and strategic value.