A Matter of (Relational) Style: Loan Officer Consistency and Exchange Continuity in Microfinance

Forthcoming, Management Science

58 Pages Posted: 2 Feb 2015 Last revised: 13 Mar 2015

See all articles by Rodrigo Canales

Rodrigo Canales

Yale School of Management

Jason Greenberg

University of Pennsylvania; Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Date Written: January 31, 2015

Abstract

Social scientists have long considered what mechanisms underlie repeated exchange. Three mechanisms have garnered the majority of this attention: Formal contracts, relational contracts, and relationally embedded social ties. Although each mechanism has its virtues, all three exhibit a common limitation: An inability to fully explain the continuation and stability of inter-temporal exchange between individuals and organizations in the face of change. Drawing on extensive quantitative data on approximately 450,000 microfinance loans made by an MFI in Mexico from 2004-2008 that include random assignment of loan officers, this research proposes the concept of “relational styles” to help explain how repeated exchange is possible in the face of personnel change. We define relational styles as systematically reoccurring patterns of interaction employed by social actors within and across exchange relationships — in this paper, between microfinance clients and loan officers. We show that relational styles that are consistent facilitate a clear understanding of expectations and thus exchange. We also demonstrate that consistency in the relational styles followed by successive loan officers mitigates the negative impact of a broken loan officer-client tie. This paper thus proposes and empirically tests a social mechanism based on relational styles that often accompanies relational embeddedness, but may also serve as a partial substitute for it.

Keywords: Microfinance, networks, relational contracts, relational embeddedness, development, Mexico, natural experiment

Suggested Citation

Canales, Rodrigo and Greenberg, Jason, A Matter of (Relational) Style: Loan Officer Consistency and Exchange Continuity in Microfinance (January 31, 2015). Forthcoming, Management Science, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2558553

Rodrigo Canales

Yale School of Management ( email )

135 Prospect Street
P.O. Box 208200
New Haven, CT 06520-8200
United States
(203) 432-6054 (Phone)
(203) 432-9994 (Fax)

Jason Greenberg (Contact Author)

University of Pennsylvania ( email )

Pennsylvania, PA
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.j-greenberg.com

Cornell SC Johnson College of Business ( email )

Ithaca, NY 14850
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
170
Abstract Views
1,669
Rank
373,225
PlumX Metrics