Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of distributor slackness on supplier encroachment (SE) and examine the mediating role of inter-organizational information-sharing (IOIS) and distributor opportunism (DO). Design/methodology/approach To test the research hypothesis, the authors collected data from distributors in multiple regions and industries across China and analyzed 255 pairs of valid data using multiple regression analysis. Findings The empirical results show that distributor slackness (DS) positively affects SE; DO plays a mediating role between DS and SE; and DS indirectly affects SE through the chain-mediating roles of inter-organizational IOIS and DO. Originality/value This study provides a new perspective for future research on the outcome variables of DS and the antecedent variables of SE by exploring the impact mechanism of DS on SE. This study enriches the study of inter-organizational IOIS and DO as mediating mechanisms. The research findings provide recommendations for distributors and suppliers in marketing channels on how to handle channel relationships and conduct channel manage.
Pang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.