Governing buyer–supplier relationships to foster relational rents in organic short food supply chains

PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the influence of governance mechanisms in the generation of relational rents for supplier in short food supply chains (SFSCs).Design/methodology/approachThis study used data from a survey of 181 organic producers in SFSCs, using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with the aid of the SmartPLS® 3 software for the analysis.FindingsThe results show the relationship between formal and informal governance mechanisms and relational rents. The predominance of informal mechanisms enabled a higher explanatory power than that provided by formal governance mechanisms. Further, the authors found that the complementary use of governance mechanisms has a stronger impact on generating relational rents. However, contextual factors such as relationship time, power asymmetry and uncertainty in demand have not shown any influence on governance mechanisms for generating relational rents.Originality/valueThe result sheds new light on the relevance of governance mechanisms to foster relational rents to suppliers in SFSCs. It also shows that contextual factors that affect relationships in traditional supply chains do not play a relevant role in SFSCs due to their specific characteristics.