The mediated effect of formal and informal control on governance forms

The present paper employs the perspective of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) to analyze the relevance of formal and informal controls in selecting the governance form. The evidence supports the influence of frequency, information sharing and relation-specific investments as a cause of control mecha...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Nuria Rodríguez-López, María Eva Diz-Comesaña
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Fundação Getulio Vargas, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo 2016-11-01
Series:RAE: Revista de Administração de Empresas
Subjects:
Online Access:https://bibliotecadigital.fgv.br/ojs/index.php/rae/article/view/64794
Description
Summary:The present paper employs the perspective of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) to analyze the relevance of formal and informal controls in selecting the governance form. The evidence supports the influence of frequency, information sharing and relation-specific investments as a cause of control mechanisms, and the effect of these factors on the choice of the governance form, but there is no evidence about the combined interaction between these variables. The present work proposes that there is a mediation effect of formal and informal norms on the relationship between the TCE variables (frequency, information asymmetry and relation-specific investments) and the governance form. We applied Structural Equation Modelling to companies in the telecommunications sector in Spain. Our results confirm the opposite effect of formal and informal controls on the selection of governance forms and the mediation effect of these mechanisms of control on the selection of the governance form.
ISSN:0034-7590
2178-938X