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When Levels Collide: Multilevel Articulation as a Blind Spot in Exporter–Importer Relationships and Its Implications for Agricultural Sustainability
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DOI：10.1002/bse.71350.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
How do exporter–importer interorganizational relationships (IORs) in perishable agri-food chains come to sustain, or fail to sustain, agricultural sustainability? This paper argues that the answer lies in a blind spot that most IOR research has overlooked: the level-of-analysis problem. Researchers typically study IORs either from inside a single company (the organizational level) or from the perspective of the relationship itself (the interorganizational level). What is rarely examined is how these two levels interact. We show that each of the five key dimensions of an IOR—governance mechanisms, decision-making rules, deadlines, relational norms, and values—operates simultaneously inside each partner organization and across the relationship between them. When these two levels are aligned, the relationship is robust and sustainability practices can take root. When they are misaligned, even well-designed relationship-level governance fails. Empirically, we draw on an interpretive, abductive multiple-case study in the Tunisian date sector, based on 56 semistructured interviews (32 retained for focal cross-case analysis—see Methods for full selection criteria), 15 days of nonparticipant observation at ANUGA 2023, field visits in southern Tunisia, and SIAL 2024, and 190 secondary documents. Comparing five dyads and one triad theorizes three configurations of multilevel articulation: disarticulation, partial articulation, and deep articulation. The study contributes a process theory linking organizational-level logics to interorganizational governance in use, with direct implications for agricultural sustainability in buyer-driven perishable chains.
Keywords:
agricultural sustainability
exporter–importer
interorganizational relationships (IORs)
levels of analysis
multilevel articulation
perishable agri-food chains
Tunisia-France
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