Institutional influences on network brokerage behaviors in B2B mutual fund markets: a comparative analysis of three Asian markets

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to investigate how diverse institutional environments shape and moderate network brokerage behaviors within business-to-business (B2B) mutual fund markets. Specifically, it explores how human brokers and digital platforms adapt their intermediation strategies across regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive institutional landscapes. Design/methodology/approach Adopting a qualitative, multicase comparative design, this research uses netnography, semi-structured interviews and focus groups to analyze dyadic B2B interactions across three distinct Asian financial markets: Mainland China, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Findings The findings reveal a critical link between institutional logics and broker adaptation. In China’s regulative-dominant market, brokers are forced into compliance-driven arbitrage. In Hong Kong’s normative environment, digital transparency flattens traditional arbitrage, driving platforms and agents toward reputation-based collaboration. In Malaysia’s hybrid system, cultural-cognitive trust acts as a relational substitute for formal digital infrastructure, fostering altruistic brokering. Practical implications The study provides targeted strategies for intermediaries navigating Asian B2B financial markets, advising a shift from uniform strategies to context-specific adaptations (e.g. bureaucratic compliance, digital transparency or relational stewardship) based on prevailing institutional pillars. Originality/value By bridging network brokerage and institutional theories, this study extends the industrial marketing literature through an institutionally embedded brokerage model. It uniquely connects the disruption of digital platformization with institutional diversity, formally introducing “altruistic brokering” as a distinct, trust-driven mechanism in non-Western B2B financial networks.