Organization and Strategy Online Seminar（2020-10）

Topic: Managing Ongoing Interorganizational Relationships: Power Asymmetry, Shared Third Party, and Reciprocity Between Loan Guarantee Partners

Speaker: Lisha Liu,Cornell University

Time: Friday, 25 Sep, 10:00-11:30 am

Location: Microsoft Teams Online conference room

Abstract:

Organizational theorists have extensively documented the role of shared third party in strengthening the ongoing relationship between a pair of organizations but paid little attention to the relative power between the focal partners. This paper examines how dyadic power difference impacts the role of shared third party in the unfolding of interorganizational relationships. I theorize that having a shared third party gives high-power actor flexibility in terms of arranging cooperation with its partner but pulls low-power actor closer to its partner. Using a longitudinal dataset of inter-firm loan guarantees between Chinese publicly listed firms in the period 2008-2016, I find that a high-power firm is less likely to directly reciprocate its partner when they have a shared third party. Rather, the high-power firm uses the shared third party as a bridge and is more likely to indirectly reciprocate its partner. By contrast, a low-power firm is more likely to stick to direct reciprocity with its partner and to a less extent uses indirect reciprocity when there is a shared third party. My findings highlight power as a crucial contingency on whether and how organizations use shared third parties as a leverage in managing dyadic relationships with their partners.

Introduction:

Lisha Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Cornell University. She studies how organizations are shaped by opportunities and constraints in their environment, including interorganizational networks and the broader institutional environment. Her research has been published inSocio-Economic ReviewandSociological Science. She has a paper receiving “revise and resubmit” at theAcademy of Management Journal, and two papers under review atAdministrative Science QuarterlyandOrganization Science. Her research has won a number of awards, including the Best Paper Award for the Social Responsibility Division from the 2019 Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, an Early Career Workshop Award from Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, andRobert B. McGinnis Paper Award from Cornell University. She also received the Jeffrey S. Lehman Fund for Scholarly Exchange with China along with the East Asia Program Fellowship from Cornell University, and the ICPSR Clifford C. Clogg Scholarship from the University of Michigan.

Your participation is warmly welcomed!