Farmer‐buyer relationships in China: the effects of contracts, trust and market environment

Xiaoyong Zhang and Dinghuan Hu

China Agricultural Economic Review, 2011, vol. 3, issue 1, 42-53

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is first, to develop constructs to measure three important concepts in the supply chain literature: contracts, trust and market environment, in the Chinese context and to further investigate the relationships amongst these three concepts based on the formulated hypothesis. Design/methodology/approach - The research methodology has strictly followed the recommended scale development procedures, which include specifying each constructs, item generation, data collection, reliability and validity test, and finally test hypothesis. The primary data were collected in October 2008 in Hubei Province, China. Both exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis are applied to assess the reliability and validity of the three constructs. Findings - In total, 22 items were retained to measure six dimensions for the three core concepts: contract (marketing and production), trust (reliability and benevolence), and market environments (diversity and volatility). Second, the finding supported this argument that contracts and trust functions as complements. Furthermore, a positive relationship between environmental uncertainty and the use of contractual governance was found. Research limitations/implications - The measurement model for environmental volatility is less satisfied. More research should be carried out on the measurement of market environment in the future. Originality/value - This paper identifies and validates key constructs underlying supply chain management research: contract, trust and market environment, in a Chinese context. These measurable concepts could be applied in similar settings to further investigate small‐scale farmer's position along the supply chain.

Keywords: China; Trust; Agriculture; Market system; Contracts; Supply chain management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:caerpp:v:3:y:2011:i:1:p:42-53

DOI: 10.1108/17561371111103534

Access Statistics for this article

China Agricultural Economic Review is currently edited by Dr Fu Qin, Dr Jikun Huang, Dr Kevin Z Chen, Dr Weiming Tian, Prof Daniel Sumner, Prof Xian Xin and Prof Holly Wang

More articles in China Agricultural Economic Review from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().