Reducing distributor opportunism in the export market: Effects of monitoring mechanisms, norm-based information exchange, and market orientation

As monitoring mechanisms are critical to exporter-distributor relationships, the effectiveness of different types of monitoring mechanisms remains an important issue. Our study goes beyond the separate effects of monitoring mechanisms on opportunism, and tests the moderating effects of market orientation (MO) and norm-based information exchange on the monitoring mechanism-opportunism relationship. Based on survey data of 160 export ventures in China, we find that process control increases distributor opportunism, while norm-based information exchange and MO decrease it. Moreover, at high levels of norm-based information exchange and MO, the impact of process control on opportunism turns from positive to negative. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.