A stakeholder perspective on buyer-supplier conflict

Abstract

This study seeks to investigate how stakeholder power and an organization’s pursuit of legitimacy influence its reaction to conflict with a supplier. We conducted an empirical study among travel agents and tour operators to test the relationship between conflict and stakeholder power and legitimacy derived from three different stakeholders. Our findings imply that power has a dual role. Whereas supplier power reduces buyer-supplier conflict, stakeholder power increases it. Moreover, this study shows that the quest to achieve greater legitimacy from the firm’s competitive arena increases conflict. This study is one of the few that test stakeholder theory empirically. We demonstrate that stake..