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Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
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Contractual Governance, Relational Governance, and the Performance of Interfirm Service Exchanges: The Influence of Boundary-Spanner Closeness

Ronald J. Ferguson

Michèle Paulin

Concordia University, Canada

Jasmin Bergeron

University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada

Academics and managers are confronted with reconciling the social and economic aspects of business-to-business exchanges. In a service context, the authors investigate the relative importance of contractual and relational governance on exchange performance and the influence of the boundary spanner on the implementation of these governance mechanisms and on exchange performance. They test a model of the governance of commercial banking exchanges using interview data with both parties to the exchange (the account manager as the bank's boundary spanner and the business client). Relational governance is the predominant governance mechanism associated with exchange performance. Contractual governance is also positively associated to exchange performance, but to a much lesser extent. The closeness of the account manager to the client company in terms of information gathering is also positively associated to exchange performance. However, this is mediated through both contractual and relational governance mechanisms with relational governance being the stronger mechanism.

Key Words: relational norms • legal contract • boundary spanners • exchange performance • relationship marketing • structural equation modeling

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 33, No. 2, 217-234 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0092070304270729
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