The Variety of Governance Structures Beyond Market and Hierarchy

Abstract

While research has identified a variety of hybrid governance structures, it has described and sought to explain this variety from different theoretical perspectives that are not readily reconcilable. This limits our ability systematically to compare different types of hybrids and on this basis to further theoretical understanding. Results of an empirical survey of transactions in buyer–supplier relations in the German construction industry provide novel insights into three distinct, widely employed types of hybrid governance structures. The study systematically compares the found hybrid governance structures and explores their rationales. As its main theoretical contribution, this study offers an empirically based typology of hybrid governance structures that complements earlier theorizing. It suggests that embeddedness and transaction cost arguments complement one another in explaining different and previously theoretically unspecified types of hybrid governance structures.