Temporal, Cognitive and Behavioral Dimensions of Transactions of Transaction Costs to an Understanding of Hybrid Vertical Inter-Firm Relations.

摘要

Hybrid vertical inter-firm relations are protracted buyer-seller relationships between firms, intermediate forms if compared with market relations or hierarchical relations. In the article, these relations are analyzed from the perspective of transaction cost economics (TCE). In its received form TCE is unconvincing because it neglects the dynamics of the development of transaction relations, problems of perception and knowledge, and the influence of the process of interaction between transaction partners on (perceived) opportunism. A discussion of relevant aspects of the temporal and cognitive aspects of transactions leads to the proposition that protracted interaction in the context of transaction relations leads to the production of transaction-specific values in the form of knowledge etc., and to safeguards for these values in the form of preferences conductive to the preservation of the relation. Interaction between transaction partners generates information with regard to behavioral characteristics of the parties, and also influences these characteristics. An analysis of hybrid vertical inter-firm relations which takes into account the temporal, cognitive and behavioral dimensions yields a set of novel propositions to be compared with and tested against propositions based on received TCE, in which the dimensions of exchange are omitted.