## 3 Theoretical Model and Research Hypotheses
Reputational concerns can motivate shippers and carriers to communicate clearly and deter them from appropriating quasi-rents from trading partners [25; 27]. Providing training services, such as vehicle driving and maintenance, not only reduce service costs for carriers but also provide convenience for truck drivers. Carriers that offer such supporting services can better attract and retain drivers, ultimately benefiting their bottom line [27]. This is particularly important in the Chinese market, where many truck drivers have a low level of education, making it difficult for them to gain competence with advanced technologies. It is, thus, very important that truck manufacturers make their products easy to operate and offer after-sale service options to carriers to support the optimal operation and management of their fleets [14]. Truck manufacturers often provide services to carriers with lower marginal costs due to the concentration of carrier's purchases. But this kind of good service is incomparable for owner-operators. However, in China, due to the lack of social credit systems, it is very difficult and costly for truck manufacturers to identify whether owner-operators have the economic ability to compensate for the consequences of default. Therefore, owner-operators often have more difficulties in getting services, such as free trials, loans, and insurance. Consequently, when owner-operators buy trucks, these services have little impact on their purchase decisions. We, therefore, hypothesized:  
**Hypothesis 2b (H2b). **_When making truck-purchasing decisions, carriers (organizational buyers) have a higher preference than owner-operators (individual buyers) for products related to services._  
TCE indicates that bounded rationality is the assumption that the human mind has cognitive limitations that make it difficult for decision-makers (in spite of best efforts) to fully handle the complexities of all possible aspects of any particular decision [53; 54; 57]. Consequently, it is costly, both in time and resources, for decision-makers to both acquire and interpret information. Due to the low education level, owner-operators' capability to obtain true and useful information is very limited in China. Currently, the Internet has of a large amount of false information, so it is very difficult and costly for owner-operators to identify correct and useful information. Consequently, it is difficult for owner-operators to take into account all the potential costs of operation, such as management, delivery, and service, to reach the most efficient and accurate evaluation. At the same time, owner-operators are usually subject to financial constraints due to the scale and profit margin of their businesses. Even if they are fully aware of the importance of TCO [67], their buying decisions will be greatly restricted by their purchasing power. As a result, owner-operators may take the initial price, rather than the TCO, as a top criterion in making their purchase decision. In contrast, carriers are motivated by maximizing profit, and thus, are more attuned to minimizing the TCO than owner-operators are [27]. According to TCE, bounded rationality is one of most important assumptions for the emergence of a company. That is to say, the cost of internal coordination is lower than the market transaction costs. Carriers' decision making is, thus, much more professional and comprehensive and they have more experience and resources in the industry to draw from [27; 60]. The experience and resources of carriers are their specificity assets which are difficult to be imitated and replaced in a short time. The specialists in each department can provide useful information to evaluate the efficiency of each purchase decision. Abundant resources and capital allow them to reach the optimal cost structure for their purchase [60]. We, therefore, hypothesized:  
**Hypothesis 2c (H2c).