Inter-Organizational Relationships: A Systematic Review of IOR Formation Literature and an Empirical Examination of IORs in the US Healthcare Sector

This dissertation contributes to the multidisciplinary research on formation, dynamics, and outcomes of interorganizational relationships (IORs) and bridges the IOR research with environmental uncertainty and environmental munificence literature to reveal the relevant implications of the interplay between environmental and network attributes for firm-specific economic and non-economic outcomes. Study I contributes to IOR formation domain by reviewing and synthesizing knowledge of a comprehensive list of antecedents from number of theoretical perspectives, arranging these antecedents by levels of analysis, and bringing the respective evidence from different disciplines together. It also sheds light on what we do not know and delineates possible underlying reasons of these gaps in IOR formation knowledge, thereby providing a solid foundation for future research to arrive at more robust and straightforward conclusions on IOR formation processes. Study II and III expand our knowledge on IORs’ firm level outcomes and add the role of context to the equation to also tackle the dynamics domain of IOR research. Specifically, Study II examines the role of environmental uncertainty and munificence in how firm’s IOR formation behavior influences its performance and changes the common conceptualization of the underlying mechanism driving this relationship to position interlocking ties as the means for proactive adaptation, rather than as reactive mechanism for reducing uncertainty. Study III conceptualizes firm’s existing inter-organizational network as a pool of resources that can be leveraged to enable and support firm’s vertical integration decisions through asset, information, and status flows and reveals the nuances of vertical integration decisions by simultaneous account for environmental dimensions (uncertainty, munificence) and interorganizational networks. Significant conceptual and empirical implications of findings reported in this dissertation are hoped to encourage scholars to incorporate environmental conditions into future examination of IOR phenomena and avoid overly simplistic applications in future research.