The Effects of Agency Costs among Interfirm Alliances: A Study of Singapore Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMES) in China

摘要

The objective of this paper is to conduct empirical research on the influence of agency costs on alliance performance in China. From the literature reviews, five hypotheses incorporating opportunism, goal congruence, information exchange, inter-organizational trust, partner reputation, and alliance performance were developed to test the correlations between agency costs and alliance performance. For data collection, 649 questionnaires were mailed to a selected list of Singaporean firms with business transactions in China. 118 usable questionnaires were received representing a response rate of 18.18%. In this study, we found Singaporean firms were generally satisfied with the alliance performance with their Chinese partners. Though the Chinese partners were opportunistic in their business dealings, it tends to affect smaller Singaporean SMEs with shorter alliance relationship.