Purpose: This study seeks: (1) to identify whether the form of governance adopted (relational or contractual) drives suppliers' and buyers' collaboration in the same way; (2) to examine if both parties hold a similar view on the simultaneous use of both governance forms; and (3) to explore whether their perceptions on governance, collaboration and performance differ.Design/methodology/approach: The study used data from a survey of 150 matched buyer–supplier dyads from South Korea, using structural equation modeling (SEM) for the analysis.Findings: (1) While governance mechanisms assist collaboration and affect operational and innovation outcomes, the significance and relative strength of the proposed relationships are perceived differently by buyers and suppliers. (2) Contrasting results are found regarding the interaction effect of the governance mechanisms on collaboration: a complementary relationship for the buyer and a substitutive relationship for the supplier.Originality/value: Studies on buyer–supplier relationships have yielded inconsistent results regarding whether the interactions of governance mechanisms function as substitutes or complements, because research has largely been conducted from the buyer's perspective, rather than the supplier's; this imbalanced view calls for integrated perspectives.

Despite the growing popularity of blockchain technology (BT) applications in a supply chain (SC), the academic literature has failed to offer a complete picture of BT embedded in SC, hereafter referred to as BT-enabled SC, while focusing on BT’s specifics. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to develop a conceptual framework by identifying BT’s multifaceted features and clarifying their roles in designing BT-enabled SCs. Specifically, we delve into BT’s extant definitions in business disciplines as a basis for identifying BT’s key attributes and elucidate how these attributes can be incorporated into the design of BT-enabled SCs by introducing the framework that encompasses the strategic, configural, and operational spheres. This paper contributes to clarifying BT’s conceptual boundary by framing BT as a stack of technologies and applications – seven dimensions. Based on seven dimensions, the proposed framework offers guidance on how to design BT-enabled SCs.

This study explains how integrating with foreign suppliers fortifies a buying firm’s supply-chain resilience, captured here as heightened market responsiveness. Drawing on information-processing theory, we argue that supplier integration equips buyers with richer, faster information flows that enable timely adaptation to market shocks. Extending value-congruence theory, we posit that this resilience dividend depends on simultaneous cultural alignment at two levels—national and organizational. Survey data from 174 manufacturing firms engaged in international buyer–supplier relationships across East Asia, North America, Latin America and Europe were analyzed via hierarchical regression. Results confirm that foreign supplier integration has a positive main effect on market responsiveness. Crucially, a significant three-way interaction (integration × national-culture congruence × organizational-culture congruence) reveals that the responsiveness—and thus resilience—payoff materializes only when both cultural layers are highly congruent; congruence at just one layer is insufficient. By demonstrating the contingent, multilevel nature of resilience benefits, this research advances the global supply-chain literature in three ways: (1) it unites information-processing and value-congruence perspectives to clarify when integration generates adaptive capability; (2) it positions dual-level cultural fit as a prerequisite for resilient performance; and (3) it offers region-spanning evidence that guides managers in designing culturally attuned integration strategies to withstand market turbulence.

Semiconductor and AI-enabling supply chains (SCs) face unprecedented disruption from export-control regimes such as the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act. While these policies are intended to safeguard national security, they can also fragment global SCs and accelerate technological advancement in rival nations. This study develops a quadripartite game-theoretic model involving a regulator, a key technology supplier, a regulated firm, and a rival nation to explore how fines, sanctions, and technological capability influence strategic behavior across six geopolitical regulatory regimes. The results show that export controls are most effective not when penalties are maximized, but when enforcement is strategically calibrated, supplier-level execution is aligned with regulatory objectives, and regulated firms can comply without undermining economic viability. Excessively stringent regimes increase enforcement and adaptation costs and may accelerate innovation by the rival nation, while overly lenient regimes weaken deterrence and enable persistent circumvention. By conceptualizing export controls as a coordinated governance and execution problem embedded in interdependent global SCs, this study provides a quantitative framework to support the design of sustainable export-control regimes that balance security, innovation incentives, and SC stability. For engineering managers, the findings highlight the importance of compliance-oriented system design, supplier coordination, and strategic adaptation when operating in adversarial, highly regulated SC environments.

We investigate how supplier performance is influenced by the behaviors (self-interested behaviors and gatekeeping actions) of a supplier’s salesperson and engineer, and how such behaviors affect a performance-based contract design to ensure the desired performance from the supplier. This article develops a incentive contract that proves how such behaviors affect supplier performance, elucidating how agents’ behaviors influence a buyer’s incentive contract form for collaboration with the supplier. Our study found that in general, the behaviors of salespeople and engineers can damage supplier performance. Their impact changes depending on some contingent factors, proposing incentive contract forms that can mitigate the negative consequences of the behaviors on supplier and buyer performance. This paper takes multiple agents’ behaviors and their behavioral disutility into consideration when developing an incentive contract.