Third‐party logistics (3PL) user–provider integration is attracting increasing attention from both academics and practitioners. However, it remains unclear how best to adopt governance mechanisms to safeguard 3PL user–provider integration (e.g., information sharing and process coordination). Based on transaction cost economics and social exchange theory, this study examined the individual and joint effects of contractual (e.g., detailed contracts and contract application) and relational governance (e.g., trust and relational norms) on 3PL user–provider integration for operational performance. We conducted a survey involving 247 3PL service users and analyzed the conceptual model using the method of structural equation modeling. The results showed that process coordination improved operational performance, while information sharing alone did not significantly improve operational performance but complemented the role of process coordination in improving operational performance. In addition, having detailed contracts was positively related to process coordination, while contract application was positively related to information sharing. Trust was not significantly related to information sharing or process coordination, while relational norms were positively related to both. Finally, three joint effects on 3PL user–provider integration were found. Two of them were substitutional (detailed contracts and relational norms; contract application and trust), and one was complementary (detailed contracts and trust). This study makes several theoretical contributions and provides novel guidelines for 3PL relationship development.

中文翻译：

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是什么使物流整合更有效？契约和关系视角的治理

第三方物流（3PL）用户与提供者的集成正引起学者和从业者越来越多的关注。但是，目前尚不清楚如何最好地采用治理机制来保护3PL用户与提供者的集成（例如，信息共享和流程协调）。基于交易成本经济学和社会交换理论，本研究考察了合同（例如，详细合同和合同应用）和关系治理（例如，信任和关系规范）对3PL用户-提供者集成的个人和联合影响，以实现运营绩效。我们对247位3PL服务用户进行了调查，并使用结构方程模型化方法分析了概念模型。结果表明，流程协调提高了运营绩效，虽然仅信息共享并不能显着提高运营绩效，但可以补充流程协调在提高运营绩效中的作用。此外，签订详细合同与过程协调成正比，而合同申请与信息共享成正比。信任与信息共享或流程协调没有显着关系，而关系规范与两者都呈正相关。最后，发现了对3PL用户-提供商集成的三个共同影响。其中两个是替代性的（详细的合同和关系规范；合同应用和信任），另一个是互补的（详细的合同和信任）。这项研究做出了一些理论上的贡献，并为3PL关系的发展提供了新的指南。