Conceptualizing and operationalizing reciprocity

In this study, reciprocity is measured as the congruence between supplier-centric firm social practices and supplier opportunistic behavior. Therefore, reciprocity would occur when a firm reports lower opportunistic behavior from its suppliers once the firm has invested heavily in developing supplier-centric social practices. Jap & Anderson (2003) defines opportunism as self- interest seeking with guile. The study adds that opportunism involves several elements such as (i) distortion of information, including overt behaviors such as lying, cheating and stealing, as well as more subtle behaviors such as misrepresenting information by not fully disclosing, (ii) reneging on explicit or implicit commitments such as shirking, or failing to fulfill promises, and

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obligations. Details on the specific items for the constructs of ‘supplier opportunistic behavior’ and supplier-centric ‘firm social practices’ are presented in Section 4.3.1. However, it is important to layout the basic details of the constructs in this section to clarify the theoretical model.

The construct of ‘supplier opportunistic behavior’ has been employed in many previous

marketing studies on buyer-supplier relationships (e.g Anderson & Jap, 2005; Jap & Anderson, 2003; Jap, Robertson, Rindfleisch, & Hamilton, 2013; Jap, 1999; Seggie, Griffith, & Jap, 2013). These studies confess to the difficulty of measuring selfish motivations and guile directly. The difficulty arises mainly because respondents who report on their own level of self-interest are subject to a social desirability bias. Therefore, in order to avoid this problem, respondents are asked to report on the opportunistic behavior of the other party in the relationship (Jap & Anderson, 2003). In this dissertation, I employ the same technique of capturing supplier opportunistic behavior.

Firm social practices, as conceptualized in this study, are supplier-centric with a focus on maintaining an acceptable level of responsible supplier behavior. Therefore, a high degree of reciprocity would indicate that a firm reports relatively higher adoption of supplier-centric firm social practices and that its suppliers’ opportunistic behavior is reported as low.

The way reciprocity has been conceptualized in this study, it is a natural choice to operationalize it using the concept of ‘fit’. The terms fit, alignment, congruence and consistency have been used interchangeably in the management literature and the concept underlying these terms has served as an important building block for theory construction in several areas of management research, particularly in strategy research (Venkatraman, 1990). One of the first studies that developed a

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conceptual framework for assessing ‘fit’ is Venkatraman (1989), where the author differentiated among different meanings of fit and identified six different perspectives of assessing fit: fit as moderation, fit as mediation, fit as matching, fit as gestalts, fit as profile deviation, and fit as co- variation. Each perspective implies distinct theoretical meaning and requires the use of specific analytical schemes.

In this study, I argue that reciprocity of social practices for firms in a buyer-supplier relationship is necessary for developing and maintaining a socially responsible supply chain. In other words, socially responsible supply chain operations require input from all chain members and unless both the buyer and the supplier firms are willing to reciprocate, it will be difficult to maintain a socially responsible supply chain.

To investigate reciprocity (fit), it is first necessary to identify the type of fit that appropriately explains the relationship of interest. Venkatraman (1989) proposes that six individual types of fit may exist in an organization: covariation, mediation, matching, gestalts, profile deviation, and moderation.

I found that first five methods of fit evaluation discussed by Venkatraman were not appropriate

for my analysis. A fit as co-variation approach is not appropriate for this study as this approach

is based on a prediction of internal consistency between a set of related variables, which is not

the case in this study. The mediation perspective is not suited to this study, as I do not predict

that supplier’s practices will intervene with the effect of a firm’s socially responsible practices on performance but rather I am examining the fit between the set of practices. The matching

approach to evaluating fit implies that two variables of interest are related theoretically without concern for the level of an additional criterion variable. Therefore, assessing fit as matching

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would prevent me from analyzing the performance impact of the relationship between buyer’s and supplier’s practices. To evaluate fit using gestalts, taxonomies of practices are formed by grouping firms into clusters with common attributes and then the fit within each group is tested (Venkatraman, 1989). Evaluating fit using gestalts is also not suited to this study, as I am evaluating the fit between practices at the individual firm level and not at the group level. Assessing fit using profile deviation determines the impact of the distance between an observed set of characteristics with a theoretically defined set of characteristics on a dependent variable. This approach is inappropriate for this investigation since theory does not predict defined profiles that I can compare to the observations. Additionally, profile deviation essentially estimates an approximate ‘‘net’’ effect of overall fit between multiple pairs of variables, but not the specific impact of the congruence/relationship between each pair of variables.

‘Fit as moderation’ approach implies that the impact of a predictor variable on a dependent variable is influenced by an interaction between the predictor and an additional variable, designated as the moderator—this approach is very commonly applied to test the impact of fit between two variables on an additional variable. Venkatraman (1989) suggested that researchers should invoke this perspective when the underlying theory specifies that the impact of the predictor (e.g. strategy) vary across the different levels of the moderator (e.g. environment). In more general terms, a moderator can be viewed categorically (e.g. types of environment, stages of product life cycle, organizational types) or characteristically (degree of business relatedness, degree of competitive intensity), and it will affect the direction or the strength of the relation between a predictor variable (e.g. strategy) and a dependent variable (e.g. performance).

From a theoretical perspective, fit as moderation, measured as the performance impact of the

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best explains the impact of practices on social performance (James & Brett, 1984). Therefore, in this study, I envisage reciprocity as an interaction of supplier-centric firm social practices and supplier opportunistic behavior. Furthermore, I argue that reciprocity of practices (indicated by positive and significant interaction term) will be related to social performance of the buyer firm. To put differently, if reciprocity does not exist, there will be a weaker association between the moderating variable and social performance.