Appropriating value from industrial buyer-seller relationships by leveraging network capability

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how a B2B firm can improve its value appropriation from industrial buyer–seller relationships by leveraging its network capability, as well as the curvilinear moderating role of the firm’s network embeddedness.Design/methodology/approachThis paper empirically examines seven research hypotheses about the relationship between network capability and value appropriation and the curvilinear moderating effect of network embeddedness based on a questionnaire survey among 232 Chinese B2B firms.FindingsIt is found that network capability helps sellers appropriate value from industrial buyer–seller relationships via information acquisition, network resources and power. The mediating effect of network resources is the highest, followed by power and information acquisition. In addition, a seller’s embeddedness in a business network positively moderates the network capability and value appropriation link in an inverted U-shaped way.Originality/valueThe study makes significant contributions to the literature on value appropriation and also provides insightful implications for B2B firms to capture value from industrial buyer–seller relationships by leveraging network capability and network embeddedness.