The purpose of this paper is to draw on theories on inter‐organisational governance with a view to developing a reliable reflective scale for measuring inter‐firm cooperation in supply chains for use in logistics management research.
Following a literature review, the paper develops items for three relational norms. The model is tested with structural equation modelling (SEM).
The literature review reveals that most of the currently used variables and scales describe the characteristics of focal firms, rather than relationship properties. The few exceptions that focus on relationships fail to recognise the dimensionality of channel cooperation. The proposed scale is found to be valid and reliable, based on 181 observations from supply‐chain relationships.
The valid and reliable scale that captures relationship characteristics and recognises the dimensionality of channel cooperation should be tested in future research.
This paper fulfils an identified need for a reliable scale on channel cooperation. The use of SEM has enabled the incorporation of measurement error in scale development of this unobservable, latent variable.
