How to enhance supplier performance in China: An integrative view of partner selection and partner control

•The study shows that a mixed adoption of informal and formal means in selection and control enhances supplier performance.•In contrast, relying on either informal or formal means in selection and control exclusively impairs supplier performance.•The study contributes to an understanding of exchange management practices and their evolution in China's emerging economy.

Whereas effective supplier management necessarily involves both partner selection and partner control, extant literature considers each issue separately. With an integrative perspective, this study instead examines the joint effects of two selection mechanisms (i.e., public and social) and two control mechanisms (i.e., contractual and relational) on supplier performance. The results of an investigation of 208 buyer–supplier exchanges in China provide novel insights into how to adopt formal and informal approaches of partner selection and control to improve supplier performance. We find that mixed approaches (i.e., public selection and relational control, social selection and contractual control) enhance supplier performance. In contrast, relying on combinations of either formal (i.e., public selection and contractual control) or informal (i.e., social selection and relational control) means impairs supplier performance.