Manufacturers' Governance Mechanisms of the Distributors' Sales Force - Is there a Missing Link?

This paper examines the main assumptions about channel governance mechanisms in the literature as a basis for a dissertation. The literature review reveals six categories of governance mechanisms and identifies that current research only focuses on a company level governance perspective. Individual target groups within the distributors have not been investigated although a few studies examine the control of dealers’ top managers. As other studies emphasize the importance of distributors’ sales force for the success of the manufacturers, it is suggested that future research should close the gap between channel governance mechanisms and distributors’ sales force control.