The roles played by interorganizational contracts and justice in marketing channel relationships

Abstract This study explores the impact of two forms of contracting (explicit and normative) and two kinds of fairness perceptions (distributive and procedural) on satisfaction and conflict within 433 wholesaler–supplier relationships. As predicted, normative contracting is associated with higher levels of channel member satisfaction and lower levels of conflict. Explicit contracting, however, was linked to higher levels of channel conflict. Distributive justice was positively associated with channel member satisfaction as was procedural justice, but only under conditions of high distributive justice—a surprising finding that ran counter to our predictions. As expected, we found that both distributive and procedural justice limited the extent of conflict in the channel.