Inter firm cooperation under the view of

Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Management Leadership and Governance SKEMA Business School Sophia-Antipolis France 6-7 October 2011 Edited by Dr Charles Despres SKEMA Business School Sophia-Antipolis France Copyright The Authors, 2011 All Rights Reserved No reproduction, copy or transmission may be made without written permission from the individual authors Papers hav e b een uble-blind peer r eviewed bef ore f inal s ubmission t o t he c onference I nitially, pa per abstracts w ere r ead an d s elected b y t he c onference pane l f or s ubmission a s pos sible p apers f or t he conference Many thanks to the reviewers who helped ensure the quality of the full papers These Conference Proceeding have been submitted to the Thomson ISI for indexing Further copies of this book can be purchased from http://www.academic-bookshop.com ISBN: 978-1-908272-17-1 CD Published by Academic Publishing Limited Reading UK 44-118-972-4148 www.academic-publishing.org Contents Paper Title Author(s) Preface Page No v Biographies of Conference Chairs, Programme Chair, Keynote Speaker and Mini-track Chairs vii Biographies of contributing authors ix Public Listed Companies and Fund Managers’ Perceptions on Investor Relations Programs in Malaysia Norraidah Abu Hasan, Alicia Tan and Memiyanty Abdul Rahim Evaluation of the Audit Committee Features and the Manner in Which They Influence Financial Reporting: Evidence From Amman Stock Exchange Mo’taz Amin Al –Sa’eed 10 Social Media Networking Tools (SMNT): Concepts, Challenges and Corollaries of Organisational Work Practices Aurilla Aurelie Bechina and Eli Hustad 18 The Variations of CSR Functions Depending on the Socio-Economic Context? Aurica Briscaru and Georgiana Corcaci 27 The Characteristics and Performances of Entrepreneurial Management in Romania Nicoleta Bugnar, Adriana Giurgiu, Liana Mester and Mihai Berinde 35 Impact of the Global Economic Crises Over the Micro and Macro-Environment in Romania Stefan Claudiu Caescu and Ionel Dumitru 44 Sustainable CIO Leadership in China Eng Chew 51 Model for Performance Management and Measurement: Using Synergic Effects of Selected Tools Miroslav Chodúr, Drahomíra Pavelková and Adriana Knápková 60 Developing and Executing a Strategy While Confronting Conflicting Stakeholder Interests: A Case Study Michael Cummings, Gary Ottley and Robert Brewster 71 Corporative Management Through Crises EcoEfficient Modelling Cornelia Dascălu, Chiraţa Caraiani, Gina Raluca Guşe, Florian Colceag and Camelia Lungu 80 Questioning on Audit Committee Effectiveness Camelia Liliana Dobroţeanu, Laurenţiu Dobroţeanu and Adriana Sofia Răileanu 89 Governance Versus Entrepreneurship and Regional Growth and Development: Challenges for Romania in the Context of Economic Crisis and European Integration Anca Dodescu 99 Re-implementing an Individual Performance Management System as a Change Intervention at Higher Education Institutions - Overcoming Staff Resistance Marietjie du Plessis 105 Influences of the Organizational Culture on Academic Management Change and Development in Classical Universities Carmen Sonia Duse, Dan-Maniu Duse and Catalin Nemes 116 Structural Capital and Project Processes: Areas for Future Focus Barbara Edington and Beth Ouellette 123 i Paper Title Author(s) Management Leadership and Governance in Education Emmanuel Innocents Edoun 129 Communications Between Software Engineering and Business: Opportunity and Cost Analysis Richard Ens and Richard Turner 136 Preventive Measures for Dealing With Corporate Conflicts Olga Erahtina 144 Corporate Governance in Emerging Economies: Evidence From Romania Niculae Feleagă, Liliana Feleagă, Voicu Dan Dragomir and Adrian Doru Bigioi 151 VTMM - Virtual Team Maturity Model Ralf Friedrich, Udo Bleimann, Ingo Stengel and Paul Walsh 159 Managing Knowledge in Digital Economy: The Role of Virtual Organizations Bogdan Ghilic-Micu, Virginia Maracine, Marian Stoica and Cecilia Simion Ciocan 167 Social Responsibility, an Element of Competitiveness - the Case of SMEs in Romania Georgeta Grigore and Corina Grigore 181 Toward a Viable Construct of R&D System Governance Patrick Hester and Thomas Meyers 189 A Biographical Approach to Researching Leadership and Entrepreneurship Development Processes in a Small Business Context Karen Jones 199 Perspectives and Directions for Professional Development in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Compared to Poland and the European Union Jolanta Kowal 206 IT Project Management in Relation to Employees' Competence in Poland Jolanta Kowal, Aleksandra Kwiatkowska and Wojciech Kowal 217 Development of a Validation Method for an IT Governance, Risk and Compliance Health Care Framework Mike Krey, Steven Furnell, Bettina Harriehausen and Matthias Knoll 227 The Potential of Library 2.0 in Buttressing “Prosumption” Culture Among Researchers in Kenya Tom Kwanya, Christine Stilwell and Peter Underwood 239 Individual and Corporate Leadership Longevity Linda Lee-Davies and Nada Kakabadse 246 Governance of the Economic Engine Room: Insights From Agricultural Governance in New Zealand James Lockhart 254 From Reporting to Communicating: Debates on European Union Environmental Policies Transposition at the Microeconomic Level Camelia Iuliana Lungu 262 Toward a new Conceptual Model of Management and Leadership Competencies and Their Impact on Organizations’ Performance Xavier Martin 270 The Impact of Quality of Bureaucracy on Governance Performance: A Comparative Study in Balkan States Ani Matei and Lucica Matei 277 Internalisation of the Values of National Integrity Systems and Governance Performance in Some South-Eastern European states: Significant Aspects and Comparative Studies Ani Matei, Florin Marius Popa and Carmen Savulescu 285 Toward the What and How of Measuring R&D System Effectiveness Thomas Meyers and Patrick Hester 296 ii Page No Paper Title Author(s) Page No Core Competencies for Business Graduates Embark on the Economic Clusters of Saudi Arabia Sundaram Nataraja, Mazen Rasheed, Ahmed Al-Aameri and ZiaUlhaq Paracha 306 Workplace Well-Being and Engagement – Some Inter-Relations and Their Organizational Impacts Jinia Mukerjee Nath 313 The Directing Role of Governance in Establishing Proper Organizational Culture in Universities Fattah Nazem 321 The Role of Governance in Appointing University Managers With Creative Problem Solving Skills Fattah Nazem 327 Overcoming Governance Handicaps in a Developing Economy Abiola Ogunyemi 334 The Big Five Personality Traits and the art of Virtual Leadership John Politis and Denis Politis 342 The Role of Moral Values in Business Mirela Popa and Irina-Iulia Salanţă 350 Corporate Governance and Conservatism Ali Pourkazemi and Mohammadreza Abdoli 360 Changing Managerial and Leadership Roles in Successful Industries in Pune Parveen Prasad 371 Tax Aggressive Behaviour in Private Family Firms the Effect of the CEO and Board of Directors Tensie Steijvers and Mervi Niskanen 379 Making Organizational Learning Work: Lessons From a High Reliability Organization John Sullivan and Roger Beach 387 A Role of Socialization Tactics on the Perceived Person-Job fit of new Employees Nucharee Supatn 394 The Social Capital of Brand Communities Anabella Maria Târnovan 402 Knowledge Management: Falling at the First Hurdle? Gerry Urwin 410 Professionalization of TMT in Private Family Firms the Danger of Institutionalism Pieter Vandekerkhof, Tensie Steijvers, Wim Voordeckers and Walter Hendriks 419 Much More Than CEO Duality: A Behavioural Perspective on Board Leadership Maarten Vandewaerde, Wim Voordeckers, Frank Lambrechts and Yannick Bammens 427 The Board of Directors as a Team: Getting Inside the Black box Maarten Vandewaerde, Wim Voordeckers, Frank Lambrechts and Yannick Bammens 435 Board Dynamics: The Soft Underbelly of Corporate Governance Theo Veldsman 443 Gender Spread Analysis of Customer Knowledge for Competitive Advantage: Case of Beauty and Cosmetic Products in Thailand Lugkana Worasinchai, Farhad Danesghar and Kerry Barnett 452 Developing, Screening or Signalling Human Capital? Monica Zaharie, Codruta Osoian and Adrian Opre 457 465 PhD Research Papers Experiential Education as a Part of Human Development in Czech Republic Business Companies Radek Blahuš iii 467 Paper Title Author(s) Page No The Testing and Validation of a Model for Leadership Maturity Based on Jung’s Concept of Individuation Danie du Toit, Theo Veldsman, Deon van Zyl 477 Relationships Between Human Resources Management and Organizational Culture Nicoleta Valentina Florea, Ioana Raluca Goldbach and Felix Constantin Goldbach 487 Examination of the Dynamic Relationship Between Authoritarianism and Benevolence and BSH and BSW Through a Polychronic Lens and From a fit Perspective: Generating Knowledge From Lebanon Fadi Hachem 497 Inter-Firm Cooperation Under the View of Theory of Planned Behavior: The Case of Vietnam Nguyen Phuc Nguyen 505 Choice or Predetermined Path? Women in Investment Management-Why so few? Corina Sheerin 515 Identification of Specific Motivational Factors for Different Categories of Staff and its Importance Šárka Vránová 524 533 Work in Progress Papers Models for Supply Chain Governance Emil Crisan, Ilie Parpucea and Liviu Ilies 535 The Elaboration and Implementation of an Innovative Methodology for Analyzing and Evaluating the Characteristics and Performances of the Entrepreneurial Management in Romania Adriana Giurgi, Ion Popa, Nicoleta Bugnar, Liana Mester, Mihai Berinde and Lucian Unita 538 Renewing Human Intellectual Capital by Building Trust in Intra-Organizational Relationships Mirjami Ikonen and Taina Savolainen 541 Records Governance in Enterprise 2.0: Toward an Archival Understanding of Social Media and its Potential for Record Creation Elizabeth Shaffer and Luciana Duranti 545 iv Preface These Proceedings represent research pr esented at t he 7th European C onference on Management, Leadership and G overnance ( ECMLG) h osted this y ear b y SKEMA B usiness School, S ophia-Antipolis, France The Programme Chair is Dr Charles Despres from the SKEMA Business School The opening keynote address is given by Christopher B lodgett from NATO School, Oberammergau, Germany The main purpose of ECMLG Conference is for individuals working in the area of Management Leadership and Governance to come together to share knowledge with peers interested in the same area of study A k ey m of the conference i s ab out sharing i deas and meeting t he people who hold t hem T he r ange of papers will ens ure an i nteresting t wo da ys T he t opics c overed b y t he pa pers i llustrate t he wide r ange of issues that fall into this important research area With an i nitial s ubmission of 212 abstracts, af ter t he dou ble bl ind, p eer r eview pr ocess t here ar e 55 academic r esearch papers, PhD pa pers a nd work i n pr ogress p apers published in t he C onference Proceedings T hese pap ers r epresent r esearch f rom Belgium, Canada, C yprus, Czech R epublic, F rance, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Jordon, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States of America I hope that you have an enjoyable conference Dr Charles Despres SKEMA Business School, Sophia-Antipolis, France September 2011 v Conference Committee Conference Executive Danièle Chauvel, SKEMA Business School, Sophia-Antipolis, Nice, France Charles Despres, SKEMA Business School, Sophia-Antipolis, Nice, France Gordon Hunter, University of Lethbridge, Canada Jolanta Kowal, College of Management and Wroclaw University, Wroclaw, Poland Aleksandra Kwiatkowska, College of Management and Wroclaw University, Wroclaw, Poland Philip Merry, Global Leadership Academy, Singapore Ewa Panka, College of Management, Wroclaw, Poland John Politis Neapolis University, Pafos, Cyprus Florian Sala, SKEMA Business School, Sophia-Antipolis, Nice, France Chaudhary Imran Sarwar, University of Punjab, Pakistan Committee Members The conference programme committee consists of key individuals from countries around the world working and researching in the management, leadership and governance fields especially as it relates to information systems The following have confirmed their participation: Paul Abbiati (PMMS Consulting Group Legal Consultant and member of The Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply, UK); Ruth Alas (Estonian Business School, Tallin, Estonia); Mo'taz Amin Al Sa'eed (Al - Balqa' Applied University, Amman, Jordan); Maria Argyropoulou (Boudewijngebouw 4B, Greece); Ahmet Aykac (Theseus Business School, Lyons, France); Egon Berghout (University of Groningen, Netherlands); Svein Bergum (Lillehammer University College, Norway); Mike Berrell (RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia); Malcolm Berry (University of Reading,, UK); Malcolm Brady (Dublin City University, Ireland); Douglas Branson (university of Pittsburgh, PA, USA); Kiymet Tunca Caliyurt (Trakya University - Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Turkey); Akemi Chatfield (University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia); Daniele Chauvel (SKEMA Business School, Sophia-Antipolis, Nice, France); Mei-Tai Chu (La Trobe University, Australia); Phillip Davidson (University of Phoenix, Dallas, USA); John Deary; Andrew Deegan (University College Dublin, Ireland, Ireland); Dirk DeSchoolmeester (Ghent Business School, Belgium); Charles Despres (SKEMA Business School, Sophia-Antipolis, Nice, France); Sonia Dias (Faculdade Boa Viagem, Recife, Brazil); Philip Dover (Babson College, USA); Katarzyna Durniat (Wrocław University, Poland); David Edgar (Caledonian Business School, Glasgow, UK); Niculae Feleaga (Academy of Economic Studies, Romania); Shay Fitzmaurice (Public Sector Times, Ireland); Adriana Giurgiu (University of Oradea, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Romania); Ken Grant (Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada); Paul Griffiths (Director, IBM, Santiago, Chile); Milenko Gudic (University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia); Adam Gurba (WSZ Edukacja Management Department, Poland); Ray Hackney (Brunel Business School, UK); Joe Hair (Louisiana State University, USA); Memiyanty Haji Abdul Rahim (Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia); Patrick Hester (Old Dominion University, USA); Fakhari Hossien (UMA University, Iran); Jack Huddlestone (Cappella University, USA); Gordon Hunter (University of Lethbridge, Canada); Nada Kakabadse (Northampton Business School, UK); Georgios Kapogiannis (University of Salford, Manchester, UK); Husnu Kapu (Kafkas University, Turkey); Panagiotis Karampelas (Hellenic American University, Athens, Greece); Marios Katsioloudes (Hellenic American University, Athens, Greece); Alicja Keplinger (Institute of Psychology at the University of Wroclaw, Poland); Reinford Khumalo (North West University, South Africa); Zdzisław Knecht (Wroclaw College of Management, Poland); Maria KnechtTarczewska (Wroclaw College of Management “Edukacja”, Poland); Dimitrios Koufopoulos (Brunel University, UK); Jolanta Kowal (College of Management and Wroclaw University, Poland); Jiorgis Kritsotakis (Hellenic American University, Athens, Greece); Mieczysław Leniartek (Technical University in Cracow, Poland); James Lockhart (Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand); Sam Lubbe (University of South Africa, South Africa); John Macnamara (e-Ireland, Ireland, Ireland); Ahmad Magad (Marketing Council, Asia, Singapore, Singapore); Bill Martin (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, Australia); Roger Mason (Durban University of Technology, South Africa); Michael Massey (International Centre for Applied EQ Leadership, UK); Philip Merry (Global Leadership Academy); Kevin Money (Henley Business School of the University of Reading, UK); Barbara Mróz ( University of Wrocław, Poland); Aroop Mukherjee (King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia); Hirohisa Nagai (University of Tsukuba/Izmir University of Economics, Japan/Turkey,); Timothy Nichol (Northumbria University, UK); Chris Norman (Deloitte & Touche, Neuilly, France); Maciej Nowak (University of Wrocław, Poland); Lavinia Olimid (Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, Romania); Abdelnaser Omran (School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia,); Nayantara Padhi (Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India); Eleonora Paganelli (University of Camerino, Italy); Jatin Pancholi (Middlesex University, UK); Stavros Parlalis (Frederick University, Cyprus); Noel Pearse (Rhodes Business School, South Africa,); George Phillip (Queens University of Belfast, Ireland); Jacobus Willem Pienaar (University of the Free State, South Africa,); vi John Politis (Neapolis University, Pafos, Cyprus); Nataša Pomazalová (FEM University of Defence, Czech Republic); Adina Simona Popa (University "Eftimie Murgu" of Resita, Romania); David Price (Henley Business School of the University of Reading, UK); Despina Prinias (Hellenic American University, Athens, Greece); Gazmend Qorraj (University of Prishtine, Kosovo); Senthamil Raja (Pondicherry University, India); Jan Sarpara (University of Balochistan, Qetta, Pakistan); Chaudhary Imran Sarwar (Creative Researcher, Lahore, Pakistan); Elaine Saunders (UNISA Graduate School of Business Leadership, South Africa); Maria Theresia Semmelrock-Picej (Klagenfurt University Biztec, Austria); Kakoli Sen (IILM Institute for Higher Education, Gurgaon, India); Irma Shyle, (Polytechnic University of Tirana, Albania); Samuel Simpson (University of Ghana Business School, Accra, Ghana); Raj Singh (University of Riverside, USA); Gregory Skulmoski (Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates); Mateusz Sliwa (Wrocław University, Poland); Peter Smith (University of Sunderland, UK); Reima Suomi (University of Turku, Finland); Ramayah Thurasamy (Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia); Alan Twite (COO Vtesse Networks, UK); Mirosława Wawrzak- Chodaczek (Institute of Pedagogy, Wrocław University, Poland); Brent Work (Cardiff University, UK); Eleanor Wynn (IT Innovation, Intel Corporation, USA); Monica Zaharie (Babes-Bolyai University, Romania) vii Biographies of Conference Chairs, Programme Chairs and Keynote Speakers Programme Chair Dr Charles Despres is Professor of Organisation Theory in the Knowledge, Technology and O rganization de partment and a m ember of t he c orresponding S KEMA r esearch centre ( KTO) C harles holds a P h.D.in Business A dministration with a c oncentration i n Organization Theory /Cognitive Systems from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA (1995) H e f ocused hi s doc torate o n t he or ganizing i mplications of l arge-scale information systems and subsequent research has centered on the triad of information, organization an d c ulture, S ince 19 97 h is ac ademic and pr ofessional c areer has concentrated on t he emerging f ield of K nowledge Management He j oined I MD (Lausanne, S witzerland) in 1991 as an ABD R esearch F ellow I n 19 96 h e as sumed r esearch / pr ofessorial r oles at t he I nstitute d’Administration des Entreprises (Aix-en-Provence) and the Theseus Institute (Sophia Antipolis) Dr Despres was Professor of Organization and Director of International Development at the Euromed School of Business (Marseille) f rom 1997 - 2002 I n 200 he j oined t he Conservatoire N ational de s A rts et Mét iers ( Paris) as Director of P rograms at i ts I nternational Institute of Mana gement I n p arallel h e was as sociated with t he College de Polytechnique during 20 05 as a D irector f ocusing on K nowledge Management, I nternational Affairs and Certificate / Degree programs In 2006 he became Director of Development for the Conservatoire in the Languedoc Roussillon region of France Keynote Speaker Chris Blodgett is a Lieutenant-Colonel Royal Military College Canada graduate and Air Force O fficer i n C anadian F orces H e beg an as a Navy T actical M aritime H elicopter Navigator P ossessing a MA i n Management & P olicy and certifications i n K M, IM, strategy, c hange an d H R, he was t he D ND/CF K M D irector pr ior t o h is pr esent KMO position at NATO School Germany Mini Track Chairs Dr M Gordon Hunter is a Professor Information Systems in the Faculty of Management, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada He has held visiting positions at universities in Australia, England, G ermany, Mo naco, N ew Z ealand, P oland, T urkey, an d U SA H e applies qu alitative interview t echniques ( Personal C onstruct T heory and Narrative Inquiry) i n i nterdisciplinary r esearch s uch as s mall bus iness, agr icultural m anagement, governance of intellectual assets, and cross-cultural investigations His current research interests in t he information s ystems ( IS) ar ea include t he ef fective m anagement of I S personnel; the role of Chief Information Officers; and the use of IS by small business Philip Merry is f ounder a nd C EO of S ingapore’s G lobal Lea dership A cademy and a cross-cultural leadership c onsultant f or 31 years i n 52 c ountries Specialising i n t he practical application of happ iness and well-being c oncepts t o t he m ulti-cultural workplace he hel ps or ganisations de vise h appiness s trategies t hat pos itively impact productivity P hilip balances hi s c ommercial w ork w ith de velopment work i n w omen’s leadership and i s a long term facilitator with t he UN I n r ecent years he has c onsulted regularly in Bhutan English by birth and resident in Asia for 24 years Philip is a research associate at Henley Business School where he is researching the leader’s influence on workplace happiness across cultures Dr John Politis PhD is an A ssociate P rofessor of Management at N eapolis University, Pafos in Cyprus He regularly publishes peer reviewed academic papers in quality journals and his research output is presented at refereed conferences He is currently a member of a num ber of edi torial b oards, i ncluding T he Le adership a nd O rganisational Development Journal and the Knowledge Management Research and Practice Journal Before taking up his current position, John was an Executive MBA faculty member for the Centre of Excellence for Applied Research and Training, and a Pioneering Faculty of Business and Engineering Management programs at the Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates He was also a lecturer and consultant in a number of Australian universities John has also spent more than 18 years i n A ustralia and E urope i n a w ide range of managerial roles and has been el ected a Fellow of a number of professional associations viii Paul Diaconu is a high profile Romanian academic professor and researcher showing particular interests for investigations of gl obal i mplications on f uture dev elopments of ac counting a nd on ac counting gr aduate programs t hat pr ompt f or accommodation t o pr ospective c hallenges I n ad dition he i s ac tively involved i n business real life and governance of the national accounting professional organization Anca Dodescu is the Dean of the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Oradea, and Manager (National C o-ordinator) of the P roject ent itled " Entrepreneurship an d t he E quality of C hances A n I nterregional Model of Women School of Entrepreneurship" Marietjie du Plessis studied at the University of the Free State (South Africa) and obtained a BAed Degree in 984 I n 19 86 s he c ompleted her BA H ons D egree where after s he h as obt ained a M A D egree i n Afrikaans and N ederlands ( Postmodernism: A Li terature S tudy o n A ndre P B rink’s H ou D en Bek) S he obtained her MBA in 2010 at the School of Management at the University of the Free State Dan Maniu Duşe started his career at the “ Lucian Blaga” University in S ibiu in 1979 He is currently V ice Rector at the University, being responsible with coordinating the academic management (quality of education and academic human resources) He was actively involved in creating educational programs that meet the needs of today’s world Danie du Toit, BA, D Com, is an Industrial Psychologist who worked for 20 years in various organizations, holding pos itions i n H uman R esources Man agement and D evelopment H e i s c urrently s plitting h is t ime between c onsultation, pr ivate practice, an d ac ademic work H e i s a s enior lecturer at t he N orth-West University, South Africa, and is co-author of articles in peer-reviewed magazines Lilia Dvořáková, C Sc an d I ng J itka Z borková c ome f rom t he D epartment of F inance and A ccounting, Faculty of Economics, University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic Their research interests include accounting, taxes, business environment and business finance Barbara Edington is t he director of t he C enter of Excellence i n P roject Man agement, i s an as sociate professor in the Management and Information Technology Department at St Francis College, NY She holds a D PS i n Computing f rom P ace U niversity, a n MBA i n Finance f rom Temple U niversity, a BS in Psychobiology from Albright College and PMP certification Richard Ens is a s tudent at S tevens I nstitute of T echnology working t owards hi s P h.D i n Engineering Management Richard received his undergraduate degree in Professional and Strategic speech from Rider University and Master of Science in Information Systems from Stevens Institute of Technology Niculae Feleagă is a University professor PhD at the Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest; professor at t he N ational I nstitute of E conomic and A ccounting T echniques, P aris ( 1997-2000: o ne s emester eac h year); m ember i n t he “ Accounting” working par ty ( 1998-2001) and i n t he “ Corporate G overnance” working party of the FEE (2005-2006); member in the PAIB Committee of the IFAC (2008-2010) Adriana Giurgiu – Scientific R esponsible of t he P ERFORMAN project within t he P artner ( University of Oradea) project’s team; Scientific Director of the Research Centre on Sustainable Development and Competitiveness; J ean M onnet P rofessor and Mo dule Lea der:- "EU S ustainable D evelopment and Competitiveness"; S pecialist i n I nternational Business at t he F aculty of E conomic S ciences, U niversity of Oradea Fadi Hachem is a Doctoral Researcher at Cranfield School of Management and a business coordinator at the A rab O pen U niversity, Leba non H e i s a c ofounder of Leader s ac ross B orders ( LAB) H is r esearch interests ar e i n t he ar eas of F it t heory, l eadership paradigms, w ork ho me i nterface, t ime management, personality and emotional and relational intelligence Patrick Hester is an A ssistant P rofessor of E ngineering M anagement and S ystems E ngineering a t O ld Dominion University and a Principal Researcher at the National Centers for System of Systems Engineering His research interests include Multi-attribute decision making under uncertainty, complex system governance, and decision making using modeling and simulation Eun Jin Hwang is an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Human Development at Indiana University of P ennsylvania H er Ph.D is f rom t he Virginia Polytechnic I nstitute and S tate U niversity Her research and teaching mainly concern fashion merchandising, strategic management with respect to textiles and apparel and the textile and apparel industry and trade x Mirjami Ikonen is PhD student and University Lecturer of Management and Leadership in the Department of Business at the University of Eastern Finland She graduated in Economics from the University of Joensuu Her c urrent r esearch f ocus i s i nterpersonal t rust de velopment i n leader-follower r elationships, es pecially within not-for-profit organizations and new methodologies applied in trust research Karen Jones BA H ons ( First C lass) ( Open U niversity), PhD ( Bangor U niversity), C ert Ed, ( University of Wales) i s a l ecturer and r esearcher S he i s c urrently r esearching a nd e valuating an £8 m illion l eadership programme designed to develop and enhance the leadership skills of owners of SMEs at Bangor University Business School in collaboration with Swansea University Jolanta Kowal Ph.D i s a t t heWroclaw C ollege of Manag ement ( professor), t he I nstitute of P sychology of Wroclaw U niversity, Poland S he i s a r esearcher an d l ecturer ( over 70 s cientific pub lications), m ember of scientific as sociations J olanta L ectures a nd s eminars on m ethodology of s ocio-economic r esearch, management and m ulticultural r esearch H er i nterests and r esearch s pecialisation: or ganization an d management, methodology, quantitative a nd qualitative r esearch, analytical ps ychology, c ross-cultural research Mike Krey is currently lecturer at Zurich University of Applied Sciences Besides lecturing at the School of Management a nd Law on Ma nagement of I nformation Systems and E nterprise R esource Planning, H is research projects are in the field of Business Integration He has a Masters of Science in eBusiness and is currently doing his PHD at the Univerity of Plymouth in the research field of IT-Governance Tom Kwanya is a Knowledge M anagement s pecialist H e i s c urrently c onsulting f or t he G overnment of Southern Sudan o n a pr oject s eeking t o es tablish t he f irst modern l ibrary i n t he pos t-conflict c ountry H e previously worked as a Knowledge Management Specialist for research institutions in Kenya Tom obtained his PhD in Information Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal Linda Lee-Davies is a D irector of N BS Corporate and Senior L ecturer i n Business and I nternational Management, U niversity of N orthampton B usiness S chool, writes, t eaches a nd r esearches i n leadership subjects With both a commercial and academic background, she communicates closely with local, national and international organizations to ensure this is fresh and appropriate to the current workplace James Lockhart is t he E xecutive E ducation C onsultant t o Mas sey U niversity C ollege of B usiness an d Senior Lecturer in the School of Management He has extensive business consulting and executive business development ex perience i n N ew Z ealand a nd a broad H e has pub lished on d octoral ed ucation, s trategy, governance, c orporate f ailures, and as sessing s trategic per formance J ames farms nor th of F eilding, and holds commercial directorships Camelia Iuliana Lungu PhD i s an as sociate P rofessor at t he A cademy of E conomic S tudies, B ucharest, Romania H er ex pertise ar eas ar e t eaching an d r esearching i n accounting H er r ecent r esearch i nterest manifests i n s ocial a nd e nvironmental r eporting an d ac counting, b y p ublishing di fferent t heoretical an d experimental studies in national and international journals, within three national research projects Simon Lutterbie is Director of Research at iOpener Institute His goal is to understand the drivers that allow individuals, t eams, and or ganizations t o ac hieve a nd maintain p eak per formance H is r esearch s pans t he areas of pos itive ps ychology, s ocial network anal ysis, and or ganizational s cholarship H e r eceived h is doctorate from The University of Oxford Virginia Maracine is P rofessor of O perational R esearch, R isk Managem ent, and B usiness Log istics and also Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Economic Cybernetics, Statistics and Informatics at Bucharest University of Economics R omania H er s cientific ac tivity i ncludes ov er 10 ar ticles, pa pers pr esented at i nternational conferences, 16 na tional r esearch gr ants, and 12 b ooks i n O perational R esearch, Ma nagerial Decisions, Economic Dynamics, Financial Market and Portfolios Management Xavier Martin is a seasoned consultant with 20 years experience in Management, Leadership and Change Management both in North America and EMEA He holds a BA from HEC Montreal and a PhD from ESSEC Paris Ani Matei is pr ofessor at F aculty of P ublic A dministration of t he N ational S chool of P olitical Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest The professional expertise targets the fields of public economics, systemic analysis, p ublic per formance as sessment and ec onomics of c orruption H e is coordinator of t he A cademic Public Administration Studies Archive, as well as of a series of publications concerning comparative studies in the above fields, achieved in cooperation with national and foreign publishing houses xi Thomas Meyers is a P rincipal R esearch S cientist at t he N ational C enters f or S ystem of S ystems Engineering (NCSoSE), USA Thomas retired from the United States Marine Corps in 2000 after 25 years of service He r eceived h is PhD in Engineering Management and Systems E ngineering f rom O ld D ominion University in 2007 Sundaram Nataraja is a professor of strategic management at the College of Business Administration (CBA) in King Saud University, Saudi Arabia He is also the head of AACSB accreditation Unit at CBA His research interests include t he ef fectiveness of bus iness educ ation, or ganizational c ulture and leadership, b usiness ethics, business strategy, and cross-cultural management Jinia Mukerjee Nath, currently a PhD student at Skema Business School, France, has a Master of Applied Psychology and a Master of Clinical Psychology She has worked as a Clinical Psychologist and a visiting lecturer in Business Schools A regularly published creative writer, she has also written a chapter in a book on Anorexia Fattah Nazem is an Associate Professor He has been vice-president of the research department for the last five years His research interests are in the field of Higher Education Management He has written two books and 85 articles He is Chief Executive of the Quarterly Journal of Educational Science Nguyen Phuc Nguyen is Ph.D candidate in management at Graduate school of Business Administration at Kobe U niversity, J apan B efore ent ering P h.D pr ogram, he w as a l ecturer at D epartment of B usiness Administration, Da Nang College of Economics at Da Nang University, Vietnam He holds master degree in industrial system engineering from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand Kemi Ogunyemi holds a degree in Law from the University of Ibadan and an MBA from the Lagos Business School She teaches Business Ethics and Anthropology at the Lagos Business School, while doing her PhD in Management at the School Her consulting and research interests include personal ethos, work-life ethic, social responsibility, sustainability and governance Drahomira Pavelkova is working as a professor at Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Faculty of Management and Economics, Czech Republic Her areas of professional work and interest cover strategic management, corporate finance, performance management/measurement of companies and clusters, corporate valuation and b enchmarking S he has m anaged s everal r esearch and e ducational projects w ith i nternational cooperation Denis Politis has earned a MEng in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College and is a Ph.D candidate at Imperial College, London He is specialised in quantitative analysis using SPSS and AMOS and is the coauthor of the conference papers titled: ‘The relationship of mainstream leadership styles to entrepreneurial orientation’ and ‘Work E nvironments that Foster and Inhibit Creativity an d Innovation’ He is researching a novel concept at Imperial College, London Parveen Prasad completed hi s P hD at U niversity of P une, I ndia with a t hesis ent itled ` New C orporate Leadership an d E mployees Working C limate’ H e has be en Associate P rofessor at an undergraduate Commerce C ollege f or t he l ast 17 years B esides r esearch paper s at nat ional c onferences i n t he ar ea of Leadership, he has undertaken in-depth research on `Collective Emotional Intelligence’ Adriana-Sofia Răileanu is a det ermined young r esearcher a nd as sistant professor of ac counting She graduated t he M STCF m ajoring i n ac counting, c ontrol a nd auditing at t he N ational I nstitute of A ccounting and Economic Techniques in Paris Her research interests include creative accounting and corporate governance She is involved in several research projects and published valuable research papers Irina-Iulia Salanţă is and full time PhD Student with EU financed scholarship and Teaching Assistant in the Management Department of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Babeş-Bolyai University from Cluj-Napoca, Romania Her interests include topics such as Business Ethics, Management and Outsourcing Logistics Elizabeth Shaffer is a full time researcher for the InterPARES Project and a doctoral candidate in archival science at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies of the University of British Columbia, from which she holds a Master of Archival Studies Her dissertation research is on records and information policy in social media environments Corina Sheerin is a PhD student at Trinity College Dublin within the Department of Computer Science and Statistics C orina i s em ployed at the N ational C ollege of I reland, D ublin as a Lec turer i n Finance H er xii doctorate r esearch ex amines ge nder s egregation within I nvestment Man agement C orina’s r esearch addresses women’s experience in recruitment, progression and retention within Investment Management Tensie Steijvers is postdoctoral research fellow at Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), and working as assistant pr ofessor at t he Center of E ntrepreneurship an d I nnovation ( KIZOK) at H asselt U niversity H er primary i nterests i nclude f inancing d ecisions, ac counting, t op m anagement t eam behav iour and c orporate governance in private family firms John Sullivan is currently an Instructor in the School of Information at the University of South Florida He obtained his Ph.D in MIS from the University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England Previously, John spent twelve years in professional activities in the field of IS as a systems analyst, project manager, and founder of his own company Nucharee Supatn (DBA) i s an assistant professor i n D epartment of Ma nagement, MS M, A ssumption University, T hailand She hel d a Doctoral de gree i n Business A dministration m ajoring i n Mar keting Her main r esearch f ocuses ar e on d ecision-making pr ocess, hum an and or ganizational b ehavior at a ll t hree levels, i.e organizational, group, and individual, which cover both the consumer and employee sides Anabella Maria Tarnovan is a P hD c andidate i n the F aculty of C ommunication and Public R elations, National S chool of P olitical S tudies an d P ublic A dministration, B ucharest, R omania within t he pr ogramme “Doctoral s cholarships f or t he de velopment of t he k nowledge-based s ociety” Research i nterests i nclude Marketing Communications, Culture and Society, Branding and Global Markets, Network Society and Social Capital, Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Richard Turner is a D istinguished S ervice P rofessor at t he S chool of S ystems and E nterprises ( SSE) at Stevens Institute of Technology Dr Turner has 30 years of experience in systems, software and acquisition engineering H e has de veloped and acquired s oftware i n t he pr ivate a nd p ublic s ectors and c onsulted f or government an d c ommercial organizations Mos t r ecently, he was a F ellow at the Systems and S oftware Consortium, where he supported technical projects and raised the Consortium’s profile through publications, speaking and consulting Gerry Urwin has 30 years experience in information systems management, consultancy, and project management as a pr actitioner and an ac ademic H e i s c urrently r esearching and t eaching at C oventry Business S chool H e a lso contributes t o pos tgraduate t eaching at H enley Business S chool and is V isiting Professor at Victoria University in Melbourne Florea Nicoleta Valentina is a PhD student in Management at Valahia University, Targoviste, Romania, with over 12 years’ experience in HR She obtained her MBA in Marketing and in the last two years has published 25 ar ticles i n na tional an d i nternational c onferences and j ournals She r eceived a d octoral s cholarship a t Paris Est, Creteil, Val-de-Marne, France, during April-July, 2010 Pieter Vandekerkhof is a PhD student in management and family firms at the Center of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Hasselt University The topic of his dissertation is the role of non-family managers in private family f irms H ence, h is primary r esearch interests i nclude the combination of theories used in both family business and top management team literature Maarten Vandewaerde is a doc toral r esearcher at the K IZOK Center f or Entrepreneurship and Innovation (Hasselt University, Belgium), where he is a member of the corporate governance and accountancy research team His main research interest involves the board of directors and team dynamics within the boardroom He has recently published a paper on shared leadership in the boardroom in the Journal of Business Ethics Theo Veldsman holds a Doctorate i n I ndustrial Psychology with 20 years’ experience H e c hairs t he Department of I ndustrial Psychology an d P eople Management, U niversity of J ohannesburg H e has published widely H e h as chaired t he S ociety of I ndustrial and Organisational Psychology of S A, a nd was twice President of the SA professional psychological associations Šárka Vránová is a lecturer of financial subjects at VOŠE Business School in Zlín.She has a Master degree in System Engineering from the VŠB in Ostrava, Faculty of Economics, and a B achelor degree in Pedagogy from Tomas Bata University in Zlín She is currently doing a PhD course at Tomas Bata University, Faculty of Management and Economics Tony Wall is a senior academic at the University of Chester’s Centre of Work Related Studies in the UK, one of t he largest c entres of negot iated work-based l earning H e i s a s pecialist in personal a nd organisational xiii transformation through workplace learning and leadership, and works closely with organisations to accredit training programmes internationally Kowal Wojciech MEng graduate of the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, a s enior s pecialist of c omputer s ciences and c omputer net work ad ministrator at the University of Wroclaw Monica Zaharie is a junior l ecturer at Babes-Bolyai University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, M anagement D epartment S ince 004, s he has be en i nvolved i n t he q uality as surance process, c oordinating t he student r atings of i nstruction, par ticipating t o ex ternal i nstitutional evaluations, stakeholders’ feedback surveys such as student satisfaction survey and employers’ opinion surveys xiv Inter-Firm Cooperation Under the View of Theory of Planned Behavior: The Case of Vietnam Nguyen Phuc Nguyen Kobe University, Japan npnguyenkobe@gmail.com Abstract: Inter-firm relationship, especially cooperation, has been received much intention from researchers in theories and empirical analyses In general, almost studies have tried to clarify the nature of this relationship under the view of economics or management In addition, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was famous model in predicting human behavior Its earlier model- theory of reasoned action- was applied into information systems, namely technology acceptance model (TAM) These two models have been widely accepted However, they differ from the commitment-trust theory in marketing This can create shortcomings in effort of drawing the picture of inter-firm cooperation Therefore, by combining commitment-trust theory, the technology acceptance model and theory of planned behavior, the paper will build up the model for explaining inter-firm relationship The author has used hierarchical regression method in order to prove the proposed model Confirmatory factor analysis was used to demonstrate constructs and to score latent variables which became important components in structural model approach Besides that, salient features of the integrated model are to treat important components of the TPB, the TAM as latent variables, which are required to estimate, instead of being calculated directly from the suggested formula Bayes estimation method is used for predicting latent variables Using data from the survey on Vietnamese enterprises, the paper discovered that motivation for cooperation would contribute most to cooperation intention This finding would cast doubt the original concept of attitude toward behavior in the TPB Moreover, attitude toward cooperation, the psychological manner of representatives, also played an important role in shaping behavioral intention The empirical results have supported these three models in which subjective norm and control mechanism would enhance the chance for inter-firm cooperation indirectly through behavioral intention The proposed model not only contributes to the theory of organizational behavior but also suggests implications for manger in practice Managers can stimulate inter-firm cooperation by choosing the right representative Keywords: cooperation, inter-firm relationship, TPB, TAM, Vietnam Introduction In running business, firm has relationship with others such as suppliers, customers, competitors, and it is called relationship In the efforts of clarifying the nature of this relationship, authors have done a lot of studies which almost focused on inter-firm cooperation Some authors investigated factors influencing this type of relationship (Rindlfleisch 2000; Edelenbos & Klijn, 2007) The others have built up theories to explain that type (Anderson & Narus, 1990; Morgan & Hunt, 1994) All of these researches, have been studied in business and management, confirmed that these factors affect directly inter-firm relations On the other hand, in predicting and explaining human behavior, the theory of reasoned action (TRAFishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and its extended model- the TPB proposed by Ajzen (1991), became widely accepted model These theories have been tested and supported by empirical analyses mostly from psychology (Netemeyer et al., 1991; Manstead and van Eekelen, 1998; Armitage & Conner, 2001) The TRA was applied for information systems, namely the TAM (Davis, 1986) The TPB was also applied for business but with simple decisions (Netemeyer et al., 1993 and Thomson & Panayiotopoulos, 1999) Complex decisions were rarely studied except for East (1993) and Hill et al (1996) Surprisingly, inter-firm cooperation is not a fresh topic but there is less academic research has been dedicated to examine the driving forces of intention (Mayer et al, 1995; McKnight et al, 1998 and Nguyen, 2011) More precisely, there is no research investigating the effect of TPB as well as no adaptation of this in predicting cooperation decision under firm’s level data These above discussions open free room for researchers who wish to combine theories in management and psychology in explaining inter-firm relationship The present research is designed to contribute to the theory of inter-firm behavior by using the TPB; the TAM and the commitment-trust theory (Morgan & Hunt, 1994), abbreviated by COTT, as theoretical backdrops for modeling the relationships among these variables Moreover, the study attempts to further our understanding of the contribution of each construct in proposed model Lastly, the paper will treat components of TPB as latent variables which are not calculated directly from the suggested formula by TPB Using survey data on Vietnamese enterprises, the paper will show the results of these concerns 505 Nguyen Phuc Nguyen The remainder of this paper is organized as follows In the following section, theoretical traditions regarding foundations of behavior and hypotheses related to it will be highlighted Afterward, the author will present the methodology and test the resultant model using the Vietnamese data The contribution of study and direction for future research are the final part of the paper Theoretical perspectives and hypotheses The theoretical model of inter-firm cooperation, structured based on previous studies, is displayed in Figure The model is an integration of three foundations: the TPB, the TAM, and the COTT Below the author specifies constructs and develops causal relationship among these In addition, the author distinguishes between motivational and attitudinal influences in order to clarify its individual effect on cooperative intention Hence, the model involves four determinants of one’s cooperative intention before reaching cooperative decision Motivation for cooperation Attitude toward cooperation Firm and regional characteristics Cooperation intention Cooperation decision Subjective norm Control mechanism Figure 1: Proposed theoretical model 2.1 Behavioral intention An intention is understood as a determination to engage in a particular behavior (Atkinson, 1964) Besides, according to the TRA and the TPB, the predictor of behavior is the person’s intention to perform the behavior In the same fashion, Davis et al., (1989) also postulated that behavioral intention is the major determinant of behavior and any other factors which affect user behavior so indirectly by affecting behavioral intention Furthermore, intention is derived from one's desire to achieve positively valent outcomes or avoid negatively ones (Deci & Ryan, 1987) Therefore, intention to cooperate, based on Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1975), is the strength of one’s intention to engage in cooperation with others to achieve goals It is broad concept which implies goals and plays multiple roles (Nguyen, 2011) The empirical analyses have confirmed the positive effect and mediating role of behavior intention over many years (Netemeyer et al., 1993; Sutton, 1998; Venkatesh, 2000; Armitage & Conner, 2001; Nysveen et al 2005; Nguyen, 2011) However, behavioral intention is absent in the COTT One should know that there is shortcoming between psychology and marketing theory Nevertheless, it is expected that in high involvement behavior like cooperation, this component has strong causal relationship with behavior (Thomson & Panayiotopoulos, 1999) Therefore, the author expects the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: Intent to cooperate has positive relationship with cooperative behavior and fully transmits the effects of all other determinants 2.2 Motivation for cooperation The current literature on inter-firm relationships and technology acceptance highlight the importance of motivation for behavior Motivation for cooperation refers to expected benefit derived from inter-firm relationship This is similar to relationship benefit (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) or perceived usefulness (Davis, 1986) Motivation embraces intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation (Vallerand, 1997) Intrinsic motivation relates to performing an activity for itself (Deci & Ryan, 1987), whereas extrinsic 506 Nguyen Phuc Nguyen motivation refers to engaging in behavior to achieve specific rewards (Vallerand, 1997) Motivation for cooperation used in this paper encompasses these two elements This reflects the reasons for making inter-firm relationships that are independent of one’s attitude toward behavior and expectation from this behavior It is somewhat similar to goal intention (Gollwitzer & Brandstatter, 1997) or perceived desirability (mentioned by Krueger et al 2000) According to the TAM, perceived usefulness may positively affect behavior intention Furthermore, as an effect of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, this determinant can enhance manager’s intention to make cooperation with other firms even if they not possess a positive attitude toward partner or manager’s manager (Nysveen et al., 2005 and Nguyen, 2011) On the basis of these arguments, the author can propose the second hypotheses: Hypotheses 2: Motivational elements have a direct effect on behavioral intention 2.3 Attitude toward cooperation According to TRA, attitude toward behavior is defined as an individual’s positive or negative feelings about performing the specific behavior (Fishbein & Ajzen 1975) Attitude is a function of salient beliefs about consequences of performing behavior and the evaluation of those results However, in the effort of applying TRA into information systems, Davis (1986) omitted attitude determinant in order to get better understand the influence of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness on intention Despite this omission, TAM and its subsequence versions (TAM and TAM 3) have been tested, accepted and applied (Davis, 1989; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000; Koufaris, 2002 and Venkatesh & Bala, 2008) This refelects that this variable can be modified, excluded or extended On the other hand, Morgan & Hunt (1994) defined relationship commitment: “An exchange partner believing that an ongoing relationship with another is so important as to warrant maximum efforts at maintaining it” It reflects only one side of Fishbein & Ajzen’s definition Relationship commitment has been regarded as positive feelings about the worth of doing actions Clearly, both terms require an evaluation of behavioral consequences It seems reasonable to assume that these two concepts did not take into account the effect of person’s manner in partner/object of interest Therefore, applying Lutz (1985) in inter-organizational relationship, the author proposes attitude toward cooperation as “predisposition to respond in the consistently favorable or unfavorable manner to inter-firm cooperation in general.” Unlike definition of Fishbein & Ajzen (1975), this measures psychological status of person in relation to questionable objects The fundamental notion here is that attitude toward cooperation consists of multiple dimensions Attitude toward the objects refers to one’s predisposition to objects Attitude toward the instrument refers to the way for expressing attitude toward objects This classification slightly differs from Sandage & Leckenby (1980) The studies on attitude toward behavior have proposed the effect of this element on behavioral intention (e.g Ajzen, 1991; Armitage & Conner, 2001; Tonglet et al., 2004) Besides, literature on technology usage found that attitudes are influential for the intention to use (David et al., 1989; Koufaris, 2002) Specific type of attitude, attitude toward advertising, has been received empirical supports for its effect on customer’s intention (Drossos et al., 2007 and Heikki, 2008) Recently, in investigating manager’s intention in cooperation decision, Haug & Sommer (2008) and Nguyen (2011) have confirmed the role of perceived trust as well as attitude of manager on cooperation intention Thus, the author proposes the following: Hypothesis 3: The more positive the attitude toward cooperation in general, the higher behavioral intention 2.4 Subjective norms Subjective norms, developed by Fishbein & Ajzen (1975), refer to external and interpersonal influence This variable consists of two measures, namely normative belief, referring to doing what other people want one to do, and the motivation to comply with important referents This classification is similar to injunctive norms and descriptive norms, mentioned by Thøgersen (2008) On the other hand, the important of subjective norms on behavioral intention have been revealed in literature across disciplines (Ajzen, 1991; Arrighetti et al., 1997; Nysveen et al., 2005 and Nguyen, 507 Nguyen Phuc Nguyen 2011) Besides, in studying the relationship between social norms and cooperation in social dilemmas, Thøgersen (2008) found that two types of normative beliefs influence cooperation synergistically rather than additively Therefore, in this study, subjective norms will cover these two elements Congruence with empirical findings, the author argues that subjective norms are drivers for cooperation intention Hypothesis 4: Subjective norms influence is positively associated with cooperation intention 2.5 Control mechanism Perceived control has been used in several theoretical foundations such as self-efficacy (Bandura, 1982), perceived behavioral control (Ajzen, 1991) In this paper, control mechanism refers to the way of one’s control over the environment and one’s behavior This definition differs from perceived behavioral control as well as self-efficacy While the later relates to people’s perception of the ease or difficult of performing the behavior (Ajzen 1991), the former, in contrast, relates to the way of archiving that perception Control mechanism reflects the internal and external control over the behavior of interest Particularly, internal control relates to self-efficacy, based on factors that come from within subject and external control relates to the environment There is a growing evidence to support the effect of perceived control on behavioral intention Empirical results for this effect have been provided by Netemeyer et al (1991), Manstead & van Eekelen (1998), Tonglet et al (2004), and a series of studies related to information (Koufaris, 2002; Nysveen et al., 2005 and Heikki et al., 2008) Moreover, the effect of self-efficacy and perceived control on behavioral intention is typical not consistent in researches For example, while Terry & O’Leary (1995) found that perceived behavioral control predict exercise behavior, Manstead & van Eekelen (1998) argued the positive role in intention of self-efficacy It should also be noted that, although there is mismatch between the effects of these two terms, they become part of control mechanism Therefore, one might expect that: Hypothesis 5: The closer control mechanism over object/situation of interest, the higher behavioral intention to cooperation Method 3.1 Research instruments The above model is an integrating version of the TBP, the TAM and the COTT tailoring for inter-firm relationship Therefore, a questionnaire was developed based on previous researches in those fields Besides, because there is no research on this type of behavior, some items will be developed Almost constructs consist of multiple items, each of which was measured either by seven point Likert scale, ranging from (completely disagree/ unused) to (completely agree/used) or by binary one This measurement is different from other researches which used one type of scale- Likert scale (Davis et al 1989, Ajzen 1991, Hill et al 1996 and Nysveen et al., 2005) Despite this, the proposed measures used in this paper are acceptable based on strong supports from discussion on the optimal scale by Ajzen (1991) and from empirical studies (Nguyen 2011 and Goethner et al 2011) The six items motivation for cooperation measurement was developed from represented items in Morgan & Hunt (1994), Zhang & Lam (1999), Venkatesh (2000) and Heikki et al (2008) studies These items were used mainly for information systems area; hence they will be modified for the purpose of the research, combined with item in Nguyen (2011) Attitude toward behavior in general and attitude toward advertising specifically have been studied in widely literature such as Ajzen (1991), Sutton (1998), and Drossos et al (2007) However, the items developed in thoes researches were found inappropriate for author’s purpose becauses of difference from own’s definition as well as field study Therefore, the scale measures attitude toward inter-firm cooperation was developed based on items choosen from the related studies (Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Fang et al., 2008; Heikki et al., 2008 and Nguyen, 2011) This variable is measured by five items The construct of subjective norms was assessed from two perspectives: injunctive norm and descriptive norm using three items One of the injunctive norm measure was adapted from Nguyen 508 Nguyen Phuc Nguyen (2011) The remains were developed from Conner & McMillan (1999), Okamuro (2007) These three items were used to investigate the effect of social factors on cooperation intention in general Control mechanism is another version of perceived behavioral control, introduced by Ajzen (1991) This construct was evaluated by using four statements One example of the statements is “Using legal systems (e.g., court) to require partner fulfill responsibilities for the project” rates from (strongly disagree) to (strongly agree) Three other statements were developed based on study of Ajzen (1991) and Conner & McMillan (1999) On the other hand, cooperative intention (INT) and cooperative decision (DECI) were measured using items adapted from Krueger et al (2000) and Nguyen (2011) These two constructs are single item measurement 3.2 Controls Following earlier researches on inter-firm cooperation (Fritsch 2003; Okamuro, 2007 and Nguyen, 2011), the author controls analyses for size (Small, Medium, Large), age (range from to in which 1:< years; 2: 5-9 years; 3:10-15 years and 4:>15 years) and cultural differences (North, Central and South of Vietnam) 3.3 Data collection The survey was planned to get understanding about inter-firm cooperation in Vietnamese context At first, the questionnaire written in English was translated into Vietnamese A pilot study with four company’s representatives (from manager’s level above) in three representative urban regions was conducted The constructs were revised based on feedback to improve the format and scale measure Then, the questionnaire consisted of two versions –printed and soft copy- was sent to 500 companies which consist of 200 in the Da Nang and each of 150 for Ho Chi Minh and Ha Noi city These three cities were selected because of the respective disposable income per capita and representing for registered companies To ensure a high return and usable rate, following-up nonrespondents through reminder letter and phone-calls was carried out A total of 203 questionnaires were completed and used in ensuing data analysis 3.4 Data analysis method In literature on behavior study, researchers used behavioral intention representing for behavioral decision Therefore, the dependent is used in analyses is behavioral intention (e.g Ajzen & Maden, 1986 and Thøgersen, 2008) However, in order to analyze the impact of behavior intention on interfirm cooperation, this variable became independent element in empirical model (Nguyen, 2011) The purpose of this research is to build a measurement model of behavioral decision based on representative’s intention and its precedents Thus, the analysis involved two steps First, a model of cooperation intention was build using confirmatory factor analysis based on above constructs Second, the resulting model was used to explain inter-firm behavioral decision by using instrumental variable probit method for estimation Based on these, the empirical model is as follows: DECIi = β + β INTi + δ X i + ε i (1) β is coefficient of cooperative intention; X i is vector controlling for firm and regional characteristics; δ is vector of parameters of X i and ε i is the error term Congruent with the proposed model, the where DECI i is cooperative behavior of firm i; β0 is constant; INTi is cooperative intention; cooperative intention is the function of its latent variables: INTi = α + μ Z i + ∂ X i + υi (2) μ In which Z i is vector of latent variables representing for motivation for cooperation (MOTI), attitude toward cooperation (ATCO), subjective norm (SUB) and control mechanism (COM); parameter and vi is the error term 509 is vector of Nguyen Phuc Nguyen Results 4.1 Confirmatory factor analysis results The first step mentioned above starts with purification process After this process, two items from motivation for cooperation and attitude were eliminated Confirmatory factor analysis using LISREL8.8 was conducted to get path coefficients among constructs Although the RMSEA of CFA result is 0.107, it is sensitive to sample size (Chen et al., 2008) Therefore, other fit indices (CFI and NNFI) were used for testing the model fit because they are generally unaffected by sample size Based on LISREL output, NNFI and CFI exceeded acceptable thresholds Validity of observed variables is measured by item-factor loading The larger the factor loadings or coefficients, compared with their standard errors, the stronger is the evidence that the measured variables represent the underlying constructs Completely standardized factor loadings of un-eliminated items in this researches range from 0.710 to 0.958 would be considered to have good construct validity because they express more trait variance than error variance (Bollen, 1989) In addition, the proportion of variance (R-square) of items in the model, ranged from 0.505 to 0.952, indicates that those selected items have good reliability In order to test convergent validity of the model, Cronbach’s alpha for each construct was displayed in table and all exceeded the threshold 0.7 (Nunnally, 1978) Furthermore, the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) was calculated and ranged from 0.590 to 0.672 Furthermore, the discriminant validity test, shown in table 2, was conducted by comparing the square root of AVE of each construct with other correlations A model is considered to be good if AVE is greater than 0.5 and square root of AVE is greater than correlation with others (Fornell & Larcker, 1981) These confirmed that the proposed model is good and could be used for second regression Latent variables would be scored from LISREL using Bayes estimation method Table 1: Confirmatory factor analysis results Motivation for cooperation 0.875 0.663 Cronbach’s alpha Average Variance Extracted (AVE) N Chi-square df Attitude toward cooperation 0.871 0.597 203 325.65 98 Subjective norm 0.850 0.672 Control mechanism 0.850 0.590 NNFI CFI RMSEA 0.90 0.92 0.107 Table 2: Square root of average variance extracted and correlations among construct AVE MOTI ATCO MOTI ATCO 0.663 0.597 0.814 0.553 0.773 SUB COM 0.672 0.590 0.310 0.172 0.187 0.071 SUB COM 0.820 0.173 0.768 4.2 Testing the proposed model STATA 11 package is used for testing hypotheses based on constructs and latent score variables which was predicted from step one using instrument variable method, called IVprobit To test for the existence of multicollinearity, variance inflation factors (VIF) were computed for all predictor variables VIF scores were well below Thus, no evidence of multicollinearity was indicated (Hair et al., 2005) The result of initial estimation without control variables is shown in the first two columns in Table Characteristics of company and culture influence are added in succession from model to model Testing for the exogeneity (Wald test) of cooperation intention using IVprobit does reject the null hypothesis, suggesting that the endogenous regressor (INT) should be used Moreover, there is a large negative and significant correlation, athrho (another version of rho in STATA package) between the error terms of the instrument equation and inter-firm cooperation equation This reflects the role of unobserved variables affecting both cooperative intention and cooperative decision Across all models in table 3, there is strong evidence for supporting proposed hypotheses Motivation for cooperation, attitude toward cooperation, subjective norm and control mechanism have shown positive effect on 510 Nguyen Phuc Nguyen cooperation intention (Hypotheses 2-5) This empirical result is consistent with literature in studying TPB (Ajzen, 1991; Arrighetti et al., 1997; Armitage & Coner, 2001; Tonglet et al., 2004) Moreover, this result also supports for integrating the TAM and the COTT in explaining inter-firm behavior One of the remarkable findings is about the prominent effect of motivation for cooperation By separating the expect outcomes form attitude toward behavior as originally designed in TPB, motivation for cooperation, among those latent variables, seems to be the most contribution to cooperation intention It creates more than 60% of cooperation intention and exceeds others additive effect This is similar to the effect of perceived usefulness, introduced in TAM This found also support for the findings in Nguyen (2011) which use single item for measuring this effect This finding also supports the TAM which replaced attitude toward behavior by perceived usefulness It seems to be true that the first and most important factor in creating behavioral intention in any circumstance is motivation for that behavior It somewhat casts doubt on the results of other researches in TPB which have overestimated the contribution of attitude instead of motivation for behavior (e.g Thomson & Panayiotopoulos, 1999 and Tonglet et al., 2004) The other valuable result is for attitude toward cooperation Based on the proposed definition of this concept, the psychological manner of representative has played important role in shaping cooperation intention This contributes above 20% to intention This helps us to understand more about inter-firm relationship Besides the effect came from reasons for particular relations, the attitude’s effect of representative has to be considered in making inter-firm relationships The attitude term also helps us to explain the reason why trust has been key mediating variable in commitment-trust theory (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) Besides, the social influence and control mechanism contribute to facilitating cooperation decision through intention Using control system will stimulate cooperative intention because it provides the buffer for reducing risks associated with this behavior These above findings would be consistent across regressions which are displayed in table Table 3: Empirical results for IVprobit regression VARIABLES Constant INT Model DECI -5.988*** (0.734) 1.351*** (0.155) MOTI INT 4.911*** (0.0738) Model DECI -6.551*** (0.692) 1.397*** (0.142) 1.165*** (0.344) 0.426** (0.202) 0.121** (0.0566) 0.148*** (0.0527) ATCO SUB COM Small 0.689*** (0.265) -0.430* (0.239) Medium Age INT 4.642*** (0.144) 1.214*** (0.340) 0.335* (0.184) 0.118** (0.0531) 0.154*** (0.0533) 0.174 (0.170) 0.825*** (0.198) Model DECI -7.589*** (0.831) 1.470*** (0.147) 0.681** (0.282) -0.502* (0.265) 0.294*** (0.103) Central South χ2 (Wald test of exogeneity) athrho Observations 25.09*** 29.84*** 31.44*** -1.201*** (0.240) -1.354*** (0.248) -1.396*** (0.249) 203 203 203 Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p