The School of Economics, Management and Political Science at the University of Minho (EEG) is proud to announce that Eslam Thabet, a PhD student in Business Sciences, presented his doctoral thesis entitled “Opportunism Led by Asymmetric Buyer-Supplier Chains: Evidence from Egypt” on 30 April 2026.
In the author’s own words:
"Competitiveness and service supply chain resilience require strong buyer-supplier relationships (BSRs); however, trust and collaboration among parties are often eroded by opportunistic behaviors resulting from the relationship's inherent complexity. While ideal mutual benefits that characterize BSRs have been extensively researched as the "bright side," the other face of the relationship, often called the "dark side," manifested through opportunism and driven by structural asymmetries such as information gaps, role misalignment, and power imbalances in supply chain management, particularly in developing economies and in service-intensive sectors such as tourism, remains under exploration. Grounded in a systematic literature review of 245 peer-reviewed articles, this thesis highlights notable deficiencies in service supply chain research and advocates for a concentrated investigation of tourism in Egypt, a setting where tourism plays a crucial economic role and governance is disjointed, rendering BSRs particularly susceptible to asymmetry-driven opportunism.
The thesis proposes a perspective on Asymmetric Governance that regards opportunism as a systemic result of structural imbalances, rather than simply a contractual irregularity. A first essay, Systematic Literature Review (SLR) synthesizes Organizational Information Processing Theory (OIPT), Social Dominance Theory (SDT), and Role Theory (RT) to contend that information opacity, hierarchical dominance, and role ambiguity co-develop, leading to two manifestations of opportunism—advantage-seeking and asymmetry-driven—with the latter being more widespread and detrimental. The SLR outlines a hybrid governance structure that combines legal protections with relational processes, including trust, commitment, and transparent interactions, as well as technology enablers to improve verifiability.
The second essay (qualitative study) employs semi-structured interviews with 16 Egyptian tour operators’ managers across the Red Sea, Cairo/Giza, and Southern Egypt to reveal the dual nature of relational drivers: trust, commitment, interpersonal ties, shared norms, and exchange frequency accelerate coordination yet can invert into channels of opportunism under information asymmetry and uncertainty. The research also found commitment velocity as a relational skill that accelerates cooperative action but requires structural protections when power is unequal. The SDT/RT lens elucidates the mechanisms by which destination dominance and role ambiguity facilitate selective disclosure, price adjustments, and unilateral renegotiations in response to shocks and demand peaks.
The third essay (quantitative survey; PLS-SEM, n=203 tour operators’ managers) empirically tests the model in Egypt and finds that information asymmetry and uncertainty are positively associated with supplier opportunism, while exchange frequency and commitment velocity are negatively associated; moreover, trust strengthens the negative effect of commitment velocity on opportunism. Seasonality, regarded as a control variable, has a negative association with supplier opportunism, suggesting that heightened demand does not inherently exacerbate opportunism when governance is robust. The findings support the hybrid governance framework proposed by indicating that opportunism is likely most effectively reduced when relational cadence is combined with credible safeguards, and by showing that this combination may reduce opportunistic behavior.
The three studies provide theoretical, methodological, and practical contributions: (1) a multi-theory framework that reconceptualizes opportunism as driven by asymmetry and systemic factors (SLR); (2) process-tracing that elucidates how collaboration enhancers transform into vulnerabilities under specific contingencies (qualitative study); and (3) empirical validation of governance mechanisms and contingencies within an emerging-market tourism supply chain (quantitative study). The thesis advocates for the integration of relational depth (trust, frequent exchanges, commitment velocity) with structural safeguards (transparent contracts, independent verification, diversified sourcing, and digital visibility) to mitigate information opacity, recalibrate dominance, and elucidate roles. The findings advocate for standards that enhance data openness and delineate roles within tourism destination networks for policymakers and business organizations.
By consolidating insights through a SLR and two Egypt-based empirical studies, the thesis provides a replicable governance playbook for tourism supply chains in developing economies and clarifies when, why, and how BSRs drift from collaboration to opportunism."
The doctoral thesis was supervised by Nazaré Rego, Professor in the Department of Management at the School of Economics, Management and Political Science, University of Minho.
The EEG congratulates Eslam Thabet on his defence and wishes him every success in his professional and personal life!
