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Drawing on brand equity literature and transaction cost economics, this study investigates the impact of member-retailers' strategic behaviors on the retail buying group's brand equity and how such behaviors are associated with their financial performance in the context of horizontal strategic alliances. The hypotheses were tested using survey data collected from 241 small- and medium-sized supermarket retailers joining retail buying groups in Japan. The study offers evidence that relationship-specific investment directly improves the buying group's brand equity as well as strengthens the brand equity's positive effect on financial performance. Additionally, while contract-based passive opportunism weakens the positive effect of the buying group's brand equity, response-based passive opportunism directly depreciates such brand equity. Our results generate implications for headquarter managers to design and …