How to Approach Channel Performance? Examining Integrated Channel Governance from the Perspective of Social Capital

This study replicates and extends previous research focusing on channel governance in China, specifically, directly empirical test the mechanism of how social capital of enterprise influences the selection of channel governance and performance using data from Chinese investment and financing industry. The authors integrate corporate social capital into channels governance and build a conceptual model of social capital and channel governance. The findings from the contingency analyses reveal some interesting trends. The results show that social capital can be divided into two dimensions: commercial relation capital and institutional social capital. Under the influence of different combinations of social capital and governance objects, governance subjects have different selections of relation governance and power governance in terms of channel governance. In addition, the impact of social capital on organizational performance differs between relation governance and power governance. This study has important implications to managers using social capital to implement channel governance.